A Certain Magical Railgun
by tmb1112
Summary: Misaka Mikoto is attacked by a strange figure for reasons she does not understand. What is the Kamijou Faction? Why is he always in the center of everything? Touma's life is about to get a lot more complicated as the magical and science sides of his life and of the world clash. Will he be able to keep his secrets? MikotoxTouma. R/R
1. Chapter 1

**A/N Hey everyone. This is a new story I just had the idea for a few days ago after finishing the** **Toaru Majutsu no Index: Miracle of Endymion movie. I've finished all four shows and the movie now, and decided to write this story starting right after the movie finished. Anyway, hope you enjoy the new story! Let me know what you think in a review below!**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own the Toaru series: Index nor Railgun.**

* * *

 **Chapter 1:**

Misaka Mikoto stood on a near empty street in the middle of the night. It was far past curfew, but her headmistress's rants were the farthest thing from her mind at the moment. It was almost midnight, so the road was empty except for her, and for the cloaked man thirty feet ahead of her.

"What are you doing?" Mikoto shouted. She was panting lightly but she closed her mouth and grit her teeth hard. "Why did you attack me?" She questioned, pointing a finger at him and giving her most threatening glare to dare him into trying something.

The figure in the center of the street stood to the right of a dark alleyway, the same one he shot out of a few moments ago. He had a deep frown on his shadowed face, only the bottom half of which Mikoto could see because of the hood he had up shadowing the top half including his eyes. His hood was a deep blue like the rest of the cloak, so dark some would call it black. The way Mikoto could instantly tell it was not black however, was that there was a pitch black hilt as dark as the night sky resting in this man's right hand.

"Misaka Mikoto," the figure, a man telling from his deep voice, began. He spoke in Japanese but Mikoto heard an accent and narrowed her eyes at him further as she tried pinpointing where he was from. "You move as quickly as I have been told. Perfetto."

 _An Italian?_ She thought, recognizing the accent now. She kept her right hand raised but sparks started flying off of it and little bolts of lightning dropped from her fingers to the floor. This action made the man before her frown even deeper and Mikoto thought she had him intimidated so in a commanding tone she shouted, "Tell me what you want right now, or-"

The man vanished. Mikoto's eyes opened huge as he was suddenly right in front of her. _Fast!_ She thought as he brought his sword around. Her lightning sparked on that side though and the silver blade sticking out of the man's hilt filled with electricity. He winced and Mikoto took that moment to focus a larger amount of electricity on that side. As everything started to glow though, the figure leapt backwards while still managing to hold onto his static-filled sword.

"Impressive," he remarked from the edge of the road and Mikoto spun farther as she had not seen where he ended up yet. She had another bead of sweat coming down the left side of her face now and she was getting pissed off as well as nervous. Her teeth clenched while the man looked down at his sword, muttering, "Even though my hilt is coated in rubber," he looked back up and his hood rose a little this time so he was looking straight into Mikoto's eyes and she back into his. "You are worthy of learning the name of the one who will kill you."

 _Kill me?_ "Why?!" Mikoto shouted at the man on the side of the road. He started circling her but she stayed in place with lightning sparking in a circle around her for protection. He walked back to the place he was before and Mikoto called out, "Your hilt is rubber so that means you planned on attacking me from the start. This is a premeditated attack, but I don't even know who you are!"

The man she faced reached his hands up and grabbed his hood. He lowered it off the top of his head and Mikoto's eyes widened more at the sight of the clean shaven, shiny scalp of the man she was fighting. His skin was white, but on top of his skull there was a tattoo, a tattoo of two thick black lines that crossed each other to look like a lowercase 't.' "In Italia I am known only as 'Assassino.'" He said this to Mikoto and then rose back up the katana in both hands so it was on his right side with the blade pointed straight at her. He did not answer Mikoto's questions, though now she only had more as the man calling himself an assassin darted forward. "Die!" He yelled. "Railgun of the Kamijou Faction!"

Mikoto swung her arms across her body and two strong bolts of lightning rippled across the floor. They were so much stronger than her last attacks that this time the bolts left scars on the ground beneath her lightning. Black trench marks where the pavement was ripped through appeared under each of Mikoto's lightning bolts as she dragged them around herself, doing three-sixty spins the whole time. Assassino was running around her so fast he was a blur, and she had to keep complete focus on what she was doing or she would lose sight of him.

As much as she wanted to stay focused though, her mind darted elsewhere. _Kamijou? What does that idiot have to do with this?_ Mikoto's eyes shifted up a little and she looked into the distance a couple of streets in the direction she just came from. There was a tall building that she looked straight at and made her furrow her eyebrows.

Assassino saw her look away and in that split second he darted forward. Mikoto's angered expression matched her powers however, and an aura of electricity surrounded her before pulsing out in every direction for ten feet. The Italian man skid to a stop, bent his knees, and jumped backwards fast. A wide bolt of lightning was flying towards him, but he slashed his sharp sword in front of him as he arced through the air, using it as a lightning rod to redirect the electricity away from him. He landed and skid back a few yards further before standing up straight and staring thirty feet away at Misaka Mikoto. Both of them were in the same positions they were in two minutes ago, but now Assassino was the one taking some deep breaths instead of the middle school girl. He did not take many, and he stopped panting as his lips curled up into the first smile Mikoto had seen on his face yet.

Mikoto only glanced down at his face for a moment though before lifting her gaze back above his head. Assassino did not turn around but he spoke as if looking at the same thing she was staring at, "You do not have the freedom to be worrying about Kamijou Touma at a time like this. Besides," the assassin's smirk rose, "Il Capo is already at the hospital. That boy is no longer a problem."

Mikoto's eyes widened and she snapped her gaze down from the hospital to the man before her she was now furious with. He continued without changing his own smug expression, "Kamijou Touma will die tonight."

In the following second, Mikoto felt the urge to sprint right by her opponent and also felt that urge completely vanish. All intentions of beating him quickly to rush to the hospital were quashed as the man in front of her surrounded in a veil of translucent darkness and his smile flattened out. Her face covered in more sweat as she realized that everything up until this moment had merely been a warm-up for this man whose blade's sharpened edge dripped black dots of aura to the floor like blood, her blood. She could imagine it and it put her fully on guard, it made her understand that this person was no ordinary assassin, and it told her that his speed was not the only thing she had to worry about.

Although Mikoto realized all these things in seconds and they kept her from running off recklessly, her fists clenched and she ground her teeth in anger. _Why? Why are you always in the center of everything?! Why are there people trying to kill you?_ She thought and her eyes glanced one final time at the hospital in the distance, the one she had just been returning from. _Why, is it always you?_

 **28 Hours Earlier**

Mikoto sprinted out of the rumbling building and she dove forward as right when she reached the exit, the roof above it started to collapse. She did a forward roll on the other side of the door and spun to look back as part of the cracked roof came down. Mikoto stared at the falling debris for a second then sighed in relief as the roof did not crack anymore. She rose her gaze and stared at the giant building touching the sky, _Good, it's working. The tower isn't falling anymore._

Misaka Mikoto stood up and turned around, only to be met with cheers and applause from the Anti-Skill gathered behind her. Two girls in the crowd started running over, but a third with them who was sitting in a wheelchair sped over three times as fast. Shirai Kuroko teleported out of her wheelchair and into a mid-air dive straight at Mikoto while yelling, "Oneeeesamaaa!"

Mikoto held up her right hand and palmed Kuroko around the face with it. She held the Level 4 teleporter in the air squirming for a second or two before the wheelchair rolled the rest of the way to her and she dropped her roommate down on it. Saten and Uiharu caught up to Kuroko's wheelchair and before the injured girl with pigtails could complain about not being able to hug Mikoto, the two of them started excitedly talking to their friend, the Railgun.

"You did it!" Uiharu exclaimed and clapped her hands over and over.

"And the other two?" Mikoto questioned.

"They came down at the same time," Saten replied. "Anti-Skill got some help apparently, and whoever that third voice was pulled through too."

Mikoto nodded and opened her mouth to continue with another question, but before she could start, everyone stopped what they were doing and snapped their heads up. The sky was a beautiful reddish pink as it was nearing sunset, but there was light seemingly radiating from the top of the space elevator they were all standing at the bottom of. It was not the light that made them all look up though, it was the voice that came along with it.

"What is..." Mikoto whispered, but she stopped as any noise other than the voice seemed disruptive to her. The hum of the girl's voice echoed over Academy City, and everyone stared at the sky wondering who was singing this beautiful song. The sky glowed bright white around the top of the space elevator, and the song almost seemed to match up with the sparkling of the light. They listened for close to a minute before the amazing voice began to fade. Even when it stopped, everyone stayed quiet for a few moments as if waiting for her, whoever she was, to start singing again.

The first one to snap out of it was the female Captain of Anti-Skill. Yomikawa Aiho was worried about what those bright lights high in the sky really meant, and her concerns were confirmed by the radio behind her at the command tent they had set up outside of Endymion, the space elevator. "Hello? Is anyone out there? We need help up here!"

Others spun around to look back at the command tent where Yomikawa picked up the radio and shouted into it, "This is Yomikawa Aiho with Academy City's Anti-Skill. What's the situation up there?"

"Move out of the way, move it!" A deep man's voice came over the radio and replaced the panicky one originally speaking. "Hello, this is Ryan Wilson with the staff for the concert. There's been an explosion up here and the structural integrity of the space station has been compromised. The oxygen level is going down and we're cut off from the space elevator, if it's even still working. I don't know what we're supposed to do in this situation, and Orbit Portal's CEO and the rest of her staff for the opening ceremony are nowhere to be found."

Yomikawa looked up from the radio and around at the rest of the security forces. They had only been fighting Endymion robots down here so they expected Ladylee Tangleroad and Endymion's other top members were up at the top of the space elevator. The men grabbed their weapons tighter, and Yomikawa picked up the radio and put it to her mouth. "Hang on just a little while longer, we're heading up to get you."

"You hear that? We're saved!"

"They're coming to get us!"

The voices on the other side of the radio turned into cheers, and Ryan's voice came back over the device, "Thank you. We'll hold tight. Please, hurry though."

"We will," Yomikawa put the radio down and stepped out of the command tent. "With me," she called out and started jogging for Endymion. "We're going up to rescue the passengers and take the Endymion staff into custody. Our priority task is getting those people out of there."

The woman came to a sudden stop and the thirty people about to follow behind her all stared at what made her do so. A girl with short light-brown hair stood in between Yomikawa and the entrance to Endymion. Mikoto's three friends looked nervously her way from the side and Kuroko whispered loudly at her, "Onee-sama! What are you doing?"

"Misaka Mikoto, what are you doing?" Yomikawa asked, trying not to sound too hostile. Mikoto did not move and Yomikawa's forehead scrunched up in annoyance. "Thank you for your help with the manual termination, but now you need to move out of my-"

"I'm going up with you," Mikoto said. She crossed her arms as Yomikawa opened her mouth to argue and continued loudly over all interruptions, "Without me you'd still be on the other side of the bridge!" Yomikawa narrowed her eyes at the frustrating girl, but then Mikoto continued, "What if there are more of those robots waiting for you in the space station? You might need my help again," many of the Skill-Out started nodding their heads as that made sense, and Mikoto finished, "Like that Ryan guy said, we don't have a lot of time. So let's stop standing around here and go, and don't waste any more time arguing because I'm going and that's final."

Yomikawa growled but began, "Against my better judgement, I will allow you to come with us. Though, try not to go overboard with that power of yours. In space, a single crack in a wall would pull us all into the vacuum of space." All the people who were happy Railgun was going with them suddenly became a lot more nervous, including Mikoto herself. She gulped and nodded her head though, saying that she understood.

"Alright then! Let's not waste any more time!" Yomikawa announced and started running for the Endymion tower. Her men all ran behind her but Mikoto stopped near her friends for a second.

"Be careful Misaka-san," Uiharu whispered with her hands together.

"I'll come with you too," Kuroko began in a proud voice. She started pushing down on the arm rests on either side of her wheelchair to get up. "That way, when you fly into space, I can teleport us both- ahh," she winced in pain and could not stifle a quiet yell of pain.

"Stay here," Mikoto ordered and her other two friends were already putting their hands on Kuroko's shoulders to get her back in her chair. She smiled reassuringly at them all and said, "Don't worry. I'll be right back." Mikoto turned and ran after the group of Skill-Out all heading for the space elevator.

She had a smile on her face for reassuring her friends that she would be okay, but her expression lowered into a concerned one with straight lips and worried eyes as she ran towards Endymion. _I don't know how I know, but that idiot is up there. How he got from the hospital there in such a short time, I don't know, but he's there. He probably had something to do with the explosion too._ The corners of her straight lips dipped down so she started frowning right as she ran inside the building. _If he was in the center of it, and the hull was breached... no! Who am I kidding? He beat me, and Accelerator! He'll be just, fine,_ her lips did not curl back up and Mikoto sped up so she was second to reach the elevator after Yomikawa.

The Anti-Skill Captain typed into a computer next to the elevator for a few moments, and then she sighed in relief. "It's still functional. We can go up."

"Then let's go," Mikoto said in a rushed voice. Yomikawa glanced at her oddly but decided the girl was acting as someone should in that situation and nodded her head in agreement.

The doors to the elevator opened and Anti-Skill and their ace in the hole ran inside. The space elevator was fast, but as they started going up, a few people screamed and almost all of them were taken off their feet as an explosion happened high above.

"What was that?!" Mikoto exclaimed.

The elevator jolted, but it kept moving at its maximum speed and they all calmed down as they got back to their feet. At least, most of them calmed down. Yomikawa Aiho was one of the two not to fall in the elevator like Railgun. Unlike Mikoto though, she was not staring up eagerly, wishing the elevator would move faster. Instead, Yomikawa stared through the glass elevator's walls with eyes as wide as saucers. She rubbed them a few times before shaking her head furiously to get what she just saw out of her mind.

 _It's the stress of the mission. There was not a woman falling from space. She did not have a sword. That was a hallucination,_ she cracked a smile at how crazy the illusion was. Everyone else was getting back up, but she had stumbled forward so she was right up against the glass, looking down at that imaginary beautiful woman who looked completely calm as she plummeted towards the Earth.

The elevator started slowing down at one point and Mikoto opened her mouth to shout in frustration, but one of the other men in the elevator spoke up, "We're here. Weapons hot." He pulled out his magazine and slammed it back in before grabbing the weapon with both hands and gaining a completely serious expression. Mikoto glanced around and everyone else in their SWAT gear looked the same, and she suddenly felt very out of place amongst the soldiers.

The doors opened up and the group rushed out. The soldiers pointed their weapons around, but there was no one waiting for them up here. Mikoto rushed out behind them and then she ran ahead and around the next corner. Yomikawa frowned at the girl's back and shouted, "Be careful!" The Railgun was already around the corner though and Yomikawa sighed in frustration, regretting bringing the girl with her now. "Quickly," she began, snapping her attention back to the mission, "let's find those passengers and get out of here."

The Anti-Skill team made their way through the space station that had just opened only for something like this to happen. They turned around a corner and spotted a door that had a blinking red light over it and a large pile of debris stacked against it. There was a panel on the side of the door, but the touch pad it had was shattered and sparks were coming out of it. The soldiers ran towards this door because they could hear shouting on the other side of it, and they moved the rubble as fast as they could. Yomikawa slammed the butt of her gun on the steel door to get everyone on the other side to hear her over their own screams.

The voices on the other side switched from panicky to full of relief, then the deep voice of the man Yomikawa recognized from over the radio called out asking if it was Anti-Skill. "That's right Mr. Wilson," Yomikawa responded. "We're going to get you all out of there. The door is malfunctioning though. It may take us some time to get it open."

"We don't have that kind of time!"

"Get us out of here!"

"There's a fire behind us!"

Ryan Wilson tried shouting over everyone else's voices to get them to calm down, but the panic was only rising further. Yomikawa could hear all this and she turned to her men, two of whom were engineers, and she yelled at them, "Get this door open!"

They ran forward and started messing around with wires near the door, but Yomikawa heard a commotion behind her and turned around. She looked back and saw her men clearing a path for an annoyed-looking girl who loudly cracked her knuckles in front of her. "A door like this, I'll get it open in ten seconds top," Mikoto bragged. She stepped up to the door and put one hand on it and the other down on the panel that the engineers of Anti-Skill backed away from. Lightning sparked off her fingers while she continued to frown, thinking, _Didn't find him yet, so he's probably on the other side of this door with the rest._

Anti-Skill watched Mikoto work and after only five seconds they all heard loud clanking noises followed by the center of the steel door opening up slowly to each side. Yomikawa sighed in relief and took back wishing she had left the younger girl behind. "Good work-" she began complimenting the Level 5, only to drop her bottom lip as Mikoto sprinted into the crowd as soon as the doors were wide enough. Everyone else ran towards Anti-Skill and Yomikawa could not waste time wondering what the Hell Misaka Mikoto was doing, instead shouting over everyone else's voices, "Calm down and move in an orderly fashion! Anti-Skill will lead you to the space elevator and we will all make it out of here! So stop running already!" She roared the last part and the people at the front of the terrified crowd skidded to stops coming face to face with this woman.

Pushing through the audience of the interrupted concert, Mikoto reached closer to the back where people were less crowded together and she could start running again. She sprinted down the hall but stopped and grabbed a man by the front of his shirt. The guy was farther behind everyone else in the audience, standing near the last intersection and looking back in the direction of the concert hall where he had heard shouting and more explosions not long ago. He looked down at the girl with an annoyed expression but it softened at her worried one. "Are there other people here?!" She questioned. Although she had ran right through the crowd, she was looking at everyone's faces carefully and she had yet to see who she was looking for.

"There should be," the man began. He turned to look back down the last hall where there was a fire coming out of a broken wall panel, and sparks flying from pipes in the ceiling. He pointed a finger and continued, "Down this hall, then take the first left, then straight down all the way until you reach the concert hall. Arisa-san isn't out here, she was singing to try and calm everyone down, but then there was another explosion as I was getting out of there and she stopped." He grimaced deeply and turned the other way towards the rapidly thinning crowd of people being led away by Anti-Skill. "I wouldn't waste your time checking. This entire place is a ticking time bomb. Doubt it'll hold on for another few minutes."

He smacked Mikoto's hand off his shirt then started walking after the crowd in the opposite direction the girl started looking. "Arisa-san was caught in an explosion?" She whispered. She felt bad for that girl who she considered a friend of hers, but at the same time she knew that if she had to guess, _he_ would also be anywhere a girl was in danger, and her mind shifted back its focus. Mikoto started running down the hall and she crossed her arms in front of her face to protect from the flames coming out of the wall near the intersection she had to turn down.

Mikoto ran down the final hallway and then out into a giant room that looked like a concert hall. There were cracking beams on the ceiling, and to her far right and up a couple levels she saw one of those steel beams drop right as she got inside. The beam fell and flattened a dozen seats that were luckily all empty. In fact, the entire concert hall was empty, at least in the audience. When Mikoto looked down towards the stage, she saw it was completely smashed apart and there were pieces of it lying all over the place. And there were also two people amongst the rubble.

The first person Mikoto saw was a girl with black hair, sitting down with her back leaning against a chunk of wooden rubble. Her eyes were closed but she did not look unconscious; her mouth was up in a smile and she looked so peaceful it appeared she was sleeping. The second person Mikoto saw made a huge smile appear on her face, though she only allowed it for a brief second. _I knew it._ She walked forward and lowered her smile into a cockier one while putting her hands down on her hips. "How did I know you were going to be here? It's like every time-" Mikoto froze mid-sentence and her eyes grew as wide as saucers.

She had seen the top of his head and the black spiky hair and instantly recognized him, but she had forgotten something the entire time she was looking for him. He may have beaten her, and Accelerator, and he may have gotten involved in so many dangerous events since she met him that she knew he would be okay, but she forgot that every time one of those events would happen, he would always end up in the hospital. She stopped closed to him and looked down at his back, as he lay flat on his face and stomach. The back of his shirt was soaked through with blood where it was not ripped, and he had burns all over his exposed arms and legs.

"Hey... Hey!" She ran up to him and got down to her knees. Mikoto shook him around and then gently turned him onto his side so she could get a look at the front of his body. "You can't be serious," she said through a gasp. "Kamijou, wake up," she whispered as she looked at his face, scratched and bloody and beaten. "Damn," she muttered, since the older boy did not open his eyes. His front looked as bad as his back and she did not like how he was not responding to her.

Mikoto glanced at his neck and she started moving two fingers to it, two shaking fingers, but she stopped herself before checking his pulse. The girl shook her head and frowned deeply, instead using that hand to reach under one of Kamijou's armpits before standing back up herself. It was difficult and she staggered to the side, but she was suddenly steadied by something and she spun her head around. Mikoto's eyes widened to see that girl who was sleeping when she got here standing next to her and putting a hand on her back to keep her up.

Shutaura looked at Mikoto for a second and she recognized the girl, but said nothing to her. She still had that small smile from when she was sleeping on her face, thinking about her father, Meigo, and how miracles really could happen. Shutaura stepped to Kamijou's other side and she put his other arm over her neck like Mikoto had his right over her own. "Come on," the Captain of the Black Crows said in a soft voice. "Let's get this idiot out of here."

Shutaura started walking and Mikoto nodded somewhat confusedly, but she stopped after a second and spun around. "Wait! What about Arisa Meigo? Is she-"

"Meigo is," Shutaura began, making Mikoto turn her way wondering if she knew. The black haired girl opened her mouth, but she had no idea how to explain what had happened. Instead, she just smiled and whispered, "Meigo is just fine. Now let's go. This place is coming down." Almost as if on cue, another two beams fell behind them, and one of them hit a pipe on the way down which made fire start spurting out of it.

Mikoto started walking again as she had to agree they needed to leave, but she did not understand this other girl's explanation at all. _Meigo's fine? I want to believe that,_ she glanced behind her as they reached the exit and looked into the concert hall one more time. _I didn't see anyone else in there though, so maybe, she did get out somehow._

Mikoto and Shutaura reached the first turn in the halls back towards the space elevator, but before Mikoto could turn right to head back the way she came, she caught a glimpse of something on her left and turned that way with widening eyes. The flames that were coming out of the wall around here were gone, and somehow the panel that had broken and lay on the ground when she ran past the first time was back on the wall without any damage visible on it. This was not even the most shocking thing though, as there was a figure standing on Mikoto's left side that made the girl drop her jaw as low as it could get.

"Touma!" The small girl dressed like a nun in all white shouted. Index ran forward and grabbed Touma by his bloody shirt, shaking him around while the older girls stared down at her.

"You," Mikoto whispered. _She's always with him,_ she thought, her shock somewhat lowering and replacing with a different feeling. _What is this girl to you?_ Her eyes darted left at the guy whose right arm she tightened her own grip on.

"Come on," Shutaura snapped at the two who were not focused enough on leaving. "We can get him to a doctor once we get back to Earth. Now let's go!" She started jogging and Mikoto jogged to keep up, while Index ran behind them and kept yelling at Touma's back.

"Touma! What happened? Are you alright? Where's Arisa-chan? Did you save her?"

"He did," Shutaura replied. Index looked at the girl's back and stared closely at her for a few seconds before her eyes widened.

"Arisa…chan?" Index questioned.

Mikoto looked back at the small girl in confusion, then even more as she saw where Index was looking. _What is she thinking? This girl isn't-_ Mikoto turned to the other girl helping her take Kamijou Touma to the elevator, and her eyes opened wide at the big smile on her face. Index smiled too as she saw the older girl's face and she excitedly started ranting about things that Mikoto could not keep up with. It all sounded like nonsense to her and she shook her head as they turned around the next hall.

"There you are!" Yomikawa called her way. She was ready to scold Mikoto for making them wait for her, but then she noticed the other three that the girl had with her and once again she had to sigh as Mikoto's recklessness was not for nothing. Then, she spotted the front of this boy's shirt and her eyes opened huge. "Quickly, bring him to the elevator." The entire thing shook and she glanced up at the ceiling. "We didn't find Orbit Portal's CEO, but we can't wait up here any longer than we have. Another team will come up once we've gotten all the civilians out."

Mikoto nodded as that made sense, but she already got what she came for anyway. She took a step and then heard a groan on her left that made her spin her head and a huge look of relief to wash over her face. The spiky-haired boy moaned again before quieting down again, and Mikoto let out a deep breath. "Idiot," she whispered. "You always go too far." _Why do you always have to go so far?_

sc

 **PRESENT**

 _I'm gonna beat the answer out of you one of these days. But for now,_ Mikoto's eyes shifted focus back to Assassino, and her body covered in a much thicker veil of electricity, _I have to deal with this bastard first!_

Misaka Mikoto sprinted towards Assassino, not waiting for the man in a black aura to charge at her. He started saying something but she ignored his mutterings and swung her right arm at him while she was still twenty feet away. Her electricity coursed through chunks of pavement that had been torn up around her and the magnetic elements inside them reacted. She sent rocks flying at the man who leapt up high to avoid them.

Mikoto stopped short and snapped her head up to see the bald assassin raising over fifty feet in the air. He rose in between her and the moon in the sky, making himself a silhouette in the sky. As he reached the point between her and the moon, Mikoto caught a glimpse of that aura around him. She had just pulled out a coin to attack him with, but when she looked up, she froze at the sight of his black aura transforming around him. "Slifer101. Lupo!" He roared, and the black aura of a giant wolf that surrounded him opened its mouth and howled down at her too. Its roar was a lot more terrifying and Mikoto shook where she stood while staring up in fear. _What is that?! What type of ability is this? I've never heard of it, and, and it doesn't even look like an esper ability!_

She shook her head of the fear though as this man started falling out of the air towards her. The Railgun calmed herself and flicked the coin in her hand above her. As it flipped around, sparks condensed around her and especially her right hand at the point she had her thumb tucked in behind her index finger. She put a lot of pressure on her thumb, watching as the coin flipped and then dropped right down in front of her hand before the assassin arrived. She flicked her thumb at the coin, and a trail of yellow shot through the air so fast it was impossible to see with the human eye. At least, Mikoto thought it was impossible to see, until she saw Assassino with his sword down like he had just slashed it vertically in front of his body, and she also saw two trails of yellow going behind him in opposite directions.

 _He, cut, the coin,_ she thought in shock, then leapt backwards just in time as the head of the aura wolf that blew apart when her coin went through it reformed. It opened its mouth and Mikoto just escaped from beneath it before it smashed into the ground hard and blew a crater in the street from sidewalk to sidewalk. "Ahh!" She yelled out as chunks of pavement flew her way and hit her. Then, she yelled in a lot more pain as two shiny projectiles she could barely see flew past her on either side.

She landed on the ground and surrounded herself with a charged aura again, before looking down at her arms and seeing shallow cuts on both forearms. Mikoto glared forward at the man whose black aura turned back into just that, no longer a menacing animal, and he smirked while holding up his left hand in front of his body. He still held a katana in his right, but in his left Mikoto could see three sharp metal objects sticking out between his knuckles. "I do love your country's weapons," Assassino remarked. He threw another ninja star at Mikoto but as she saw it coming this time, not blocked by the wall of debris and dust, she was able to redirect it with her lightning. Assassino did not look deterred though and instead smirked more, "Prepare yourself for round two-"

"Assassino," a voice came out of the man's waist and he stopped smirking, confusing his opponent. The frowning bald man reached down and into his cloak and pulled out a radio. Mikoto looked at the radio and heard a man's voice less deep than Assassino's continue, "Rendezvous immediately. Change in plans."

Assassino frowned but he lowered his arms and nodded his head. He pressed a button on the radio and responded, "Understood." He slid the radio back in his pocket and then grinned towards Mikoto again. "We will have to continue this at a later date."

"Don't think you can just walk away after this!" Mikoto yelled his way, getting really pissed off now as he was just deciding to end their battle early.

He lowered his smile to have flat lips and looked the girl straight in the eyes. "At every new country I visit, I master their native weapons." Mikoto's eyes started to widen as she realized what that meant. "However," he continued, "the next time we meet, I will not be trying new weapons. You will face Assassino at his full power. Prepare yourself." His black aura suddenly darkened so much that the man inside it became invisible. He vanished inside it, then the aura itself faded and Mikoto snapped her head left and right as the street before her was empty except for burn marks and debris.

She snarled but then winced and looked down at her arms to see they were bleeding pretty bad. _I might need a doctor to-_ she froze and her head snapped back up. Mikoto wasted no time and started sprinted towards the hospital in the distance. _Who was that voice over the radio? Why did their plans change? Is Kamijou-_ she didn't want to finish that last thought and just sprinted faster down the street.

Mikoto reached the hospital in under a minute, and she did not even go to the doors. Zapping her own feet and the wall of the building, she leapt up and then ran up the ninety degrees slant of the hospital wall without any difficulty. She tried to think of where his room would be from the outside of the hospital, and she at least knew the floor so she ran up there first. Once she got close, it was not hard to figure out which room was his though. She could see it from halfway across the hospital, because of the curtains flapping outside while every other window was closed.

Mikoto ran towards the odd window out, and stopped when she reached the edge of it. She looked in the frame at the shattered glass, then carefully stepped through it and dropped to the floor where she heard the cracking of some glass shards under her feet. The light above her was off, but then again the lightbulb itself was shattered and mixed in with the glass from the window all over the floor and the bed in the center of the room. Misaka Mikoto looked around the room and saw burn marks on the walls and floor, broken furniture, and slashes in the mattress directly where the boy she recently saw in here had been laying.

She stared closer at the mattress and she gulped at the sight of red on the sheets. Mikoto looked back up and around the destroyed room. "Kamijou, where are you?"


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER 2:**

"The damage for the ballistic slider we leant you comes right out of your paycheck," Stiyl said. The seven foot tall teenager with long red hair and a barcode tattoo under his right eye smirked at the spiky-haired boy lying on the hospital bed in front of him.

Kamijou Touma gawked at the magician in a black cloak and commented, "You guys don't pay me."

"Guess you'll have to pay off Tsuchimikado some other way then," Stiyl remarked.

"Such misfortune!" Touma exclaimed and dropped his head back to the pillow. He opened up his eyes and gained a semi-serious expression. "And what about that magician?"

Stiyl nodded and continued, "Tsuchimikado took Ladylee into custody when he got up there, and she's being contained. You don't have to worry about her anymore." Touma sighed in relief and Stiyl shook his head at the older teen. "Guess I should thank you. The whole Earth does actually."

Touma did not change his expression and he just shook his head once. He was going to say something about how it wasn't him, but the door to the hospital room opened up and they both turned to see the chubby doctor with a frog-like face standing there. "Kamijou, there is a girl here to see you."

Said boy sighed and glanced above Stiyl's head at the wall clock to see it was already nine o'clock. "I told Himegami to bring Index home-"

"It is not the nun," the doctor interrupted. "Misaka Mikoto is here."

Touma's eyes widened for a second, then he turned to Stiyl who got up from his seat next to Touma's bed. "I'll leave you to it," Stiyl said and he put a cigarette in his mouth, instantly getting the doctor in front of him annoyed.

"Oi Stiyl," Touma began before the magician was out of the room. The taller teen stopped and glanced back, and Touma continued while scratching the side of his head and looking away, "Would you mind, checking on Index for me? Just to make sure she got back to the dorm-"

"Yeah yeah," Stiyl replied and waved his hand at the teen. He turned and walked towards the open door, raising his right hand as he did and igniting his cigarette with a finger. "I was going to do that anyway," he said in a low voice and Touma nodded with a small smile.

Stiyl walked out and he headed down the hall with the doctor walking after him complaining about the cigarette that he had told him he could not light in there. A girl watched the taller teen with red hair walk by, wondering who he was since she saw him here the day before too, but then she turned away and looked back into the open room in front of her.

Mikoto walked into the room to see Touma sitting up on his bed and looking at her with a small smile. He was in the same place she saw him yesterday before he suddenly vanished when she went to get drinks and somehow made it up to the top of the space elevator before her. "Hey Biribiri," he said, and instantly Mikoto's hesitant look turned into a frustrated one and she frowned deeply at him. "What are you doing here?" He questioned her.

"That's not my name," she growled at him and sparks flew around her. His face covered in sweat and he held up his arms defensively, an action that made him wince in pain and made Mikoto stop glaring so hard. The girl sighed and as she took off the backpack she had on she began, "Don't even know if I should give you this now." She opened the zipper of her pack and Touma watched carefully as she reached inside to take something out.

Mikoto pulled out her hand and in her grasp was a see-through plastic box. In that box was some food that made Touma's eyes widen. Mikoto began, "I hate the food in this place so I figured you might want something-"

"Yes please!" He said and reached forward, making him wince again and this time let out a grunt of pain.

"Stop moving, idiot," Mikoto snapped, then mumbled the last part as she walked around his bed. She handed him the box and Touma opened it up and started eating right away with the chopsticks she handed him as well.

He hummed in delight and said, "This is really good. Where did you buy it from?"

Mikoto just sat down on the chair next to Touma's bed and she pulled out a box of her own, but that comment made a tick mark appear on her forehead and she growled deeply. "I didn't 'buy' it anywhere."

Touma looked confused for a second, then his eyes widened and he asked in surprise, "You made this?" The amount of surprise in his voice made Mikoto glare at him and he leaned back nervously. "I mean, it's really good, so I just thought, you got it, from..." The more he said the more she was getting angry and finally he just shoved some food in his mouth to shut himself up which actually seemed to satisfy the girl next to him.

Mikoto started eating her food herself though she was still grumbling a little about his remarks. She had only taken a few bites though when Touma questioned, "So, you cooked all this?" She glared at him but he was looking down at his box of food and moving around the different dishes in their own separate areas. He looked up and said softly, "Thanks."

"It was nothing," she said, brushing him off so he would not think anything of it.

"Not for the food," Touma continued, which made Mikoto growl angrily at him. "Well yeah for the food!" He corrected quickly, then added, "But, I was talking about for last night." Her eyes widened and he continued, "Index was here earlier, and she told me you went up there with Anti-Skill, so I just wanted to thank you."

"There were a lot of people who needed help up there," Mikoto said quickly, her cheeks slightly red. "I wasn't just going up to get you- I mean I didn't even know you were there!" She corrected herself as the first way she said it made it seem like getting him was at least part of it. He chuckled and she glared more at him but it worked less when her face was red. Mikoto tried calming herself down, but now that they were talking about it, she had questions and she looked into his eyes which stopped his laughter. "Why did you go up there?"

He lowered his smile and replied, "Arisa needed help-"

"And what happened to her?" Mikoto snapped. His expression was not nearly as dark as it should be, and she continued angrily, and also a little sadly, "The news says the teams that have been going up there since last night haven't located Arisa-san anywhere in the space station. And since she wasn't with us when we left-"

"It's alright," Touma said, though he did seem a little sad as he said it. _She was her own person, with hopes and dreams like the rest of us. And she's not gone, not completely. Shutaura promised Index that, but still..._ He did not know how he felt about the ordeal, but he knew it ended about as happily as it could have so he sighed and looked back into Mikoto's eyes. While he had looked down though to think, she progressively got more annoyed at him ignoring her and now she was leaning forward and glaring so hard at him that he snapped up so far his back was against the headboard behind him.

"How is that okay?" Mikoto snapped at him.

"It's just, she was," Touma scratched the side of his head with his right arm that was bandaged from the elbow up beneath his shirt's short sleeve. Most of his torso under his clothes had to be bandaged, but he was glad he knew the doctor here so well and the frog-faced man was great at patching him up by now. He could see she was still frowning and awaiting an answer, so finally he just went with, "Trust me?" He said it as a question, and Mikoto did not know how to respond for a moment. She slowly nodded and he continued, "Then believe me, Arisa's okay."

"I-" Mikoto instantly opened up her mouth to argue, but she thought about how she nodded at him and closed her mouth. _Sure I trust you, but, but then what- where is- how-_ she looked so frustrated and she ran her hands up through her hair.

"Anyway, how was school?" Touma said, not-so-subtly changing the subject completely. Mikoto wanted to keep talking about it, but she sighed and accepted that she just had to trust him on this one. That did not mean she was going to go with his attempt to change the conversation though, and she snapped at him for thinking she would have fallen for that. He held up his hands defensively and she threatened taking his food away which made him gasp in mock-terror, which made Mikoto actually take his food and for that terror to turn real.

Touma begged for it back and after a few seconds of making him think she wouldn't, Mikoto finally handed it back to him. They finished up the meals she made together, and Mikoto realized something as she was taking her final bite. _We're the only ones in here. We just ate dinner together. Is this- Is this a-_

Touma noticed her face getting progressively more red and he looked at her funny. "Is something wrong?" He leaned up and put a hand on the girl's forehead which only made her even more red. "Wow, you're burning up!"

"I'm fine!" She yelled and smacked his hand away. Mikoto started huffing and puffing and she calmed herself down as she did. _You're just checking on him! That's it! Think of something else!_ "Who was that guy?" She questioned. Mikoto looked him in the eyes and specified, "The one who was just leaving here. He looked almost like he was dressed as a priest, but he seemed a little young."

"Stiyl?" Touma asked. He opened his mouth to say who the guy was, but then closed it as he realized he had no response to describe who Stiyl was. "I guess, he's like, a priest," Touma said and tilted his head to the side. _Does he have an actual job? Does the church pay him, or is that kind of stuff his night job? Does he work at a McDonalds or something during the day?_ He imagined Stiyl standing behind a fast food counter with an apron on and a huge smile spread across his face.

Mikoto took the smile to mean something else though and she asked harshly, "Are you messing with me?"

"Huh?" He asked, eyes widening at the accusation. "No, I mean, he is very religious," Touma argued for his explanation. _And he uses crazy magic fire demons, but I'm not going to tell you that._ "Hey Biribiri," he began, trying to change the subject again and this time succeeding better as once he said her nickname she lost focus on everything else and just became annoyed about that. "Why'd you come so late? It's already past curfew you know?"

"I know that!" She snapped at him. Mikoto had purposely not been thinking about it though. She did not want to think about the headmistress, and she did not want to call Kuroko and tell her to cover for her, because she knew once she did Kuroko would start accusing her of meeting up with 'that gorilla,' which this time she could not truthfully deny. "Hehh," Mikoto sighed and leaned back in her chair with ER eyes closed. "I had things to do today you know? I only managed to come here because it was on my way back from the mall-"

"But didn't you make these dinners before you came?" Touma asked. Mikoto's eyes snapped open and her cheeks reddened. He was looking at her funny and she opened her mouth but no words were coming out.

"I stopped at the mall first!" She yelled, then before he could question her since none of this made any sense, she continued loudly, "Why are you still in here anyway?! I figured you would be out in hours considering how often you land yourself in here. Yet it's been a whole day and you're still here."

She pointed a finger accusingly at him, and Touma replied while leaning back in his bed, "I check out tomorrow morning. The Doctor wouldn't let me sign out today..." He continued explaining while Mikoto stared at him with her bottom lip lowered a bit. She had mainly said that to change the conversation and mess with him, but now she was genuinely surprised that he had tried to check out with the injuries that she saw him with the night before.

Mikoto thought about his wounds while he continued talking about the doctor's analysis that made it so he could not leave until tomorrow. She imagined the day before when they got to the bottom of the space elevator and there was an ambulance waiting for them. He was the most injured of anyone at the space station, and although they did not let Mikoto ride in the ambulance, she saw them cut his shirt off before they drove away. As soon as they got him into the back of the ambulance, while the driver who came out back to open the doors and help him in was running back to the driver's side door, she saw them open his shirt up and both EMT's in the back cringe at the sight of his burns. He had some deep gashes too and a lot of bad bruises on his body, and she thought she heard that doctor mention bruised ribs.

"Sure you shouldn't stay for another night?" Mikoto questioned, interrupting Touma's complaint. He looked at her funny and she turned away, "I mean, your injuries were no joke, weren't they?" She pretended like she didn't know, but he was still surprised she would say that after taunting him a minute ago for still being in the hospital.

He waited a couple seconds, then shrugged his shoulders and said, "I've had worse."

"Heh, hehe, hahaha," Mikoto laughed. "That's probably true," she admitted. "I see you here more than anywhere else."

"This is like my second room," he joked back and the two of them laughed together.

Touma changed the conversation to something else and they kept talking for around another hour. Finally, Mikoto glanced up at the clock on the wall behind her and her eyes turned into saucers. "It's already past eleven?!" She exclaimed as the clock showed 11:32. The brown haired girl jumped out of her seat and mumbled under her breath, "The headmistress is going to kill me." She turned to the boy lying behind her and said, "Don't keep a hospital bed occupied longer than you need it."

It almost sounded like she was scolding him for taking up space in the hospital, and Touma got a bead of sweat on the left side of his face. _Leave, stay, leave, make up your mind already!_ Of course, he did not say that out loud in hopes his hospital room would not get blown apart. Instead, he just smiled and said, "Thanks again for the food. It really was good."

"I know," she replied and spun around. Mikoto walked out of sight of the bed before allowing the huge smirk to spread across her face and her cheeks to turn beat red. _I have to let Saten know the food we made really turned out great. Though, she'll probably start asking me how my, my da-dat- my date was. Not a date! She'll just think it is!_ Mikoto had a completely flustered expression on her face that got redder every second. She stepped out of the room and let out a long sigh, before clapping her cheeks a few times with her hands and then turning with a more hurried look in her eyes. "The headmistress is definitely taking points off tonight," she grumbled and started jogging down the hall of the hospital.

Back in the room she just left, Touma got up to use the bathroom before bed. It hurt walking still, but the longer he lay down the better he felt. Earlier that day even, it was three times as hard to use the bathroom than now. He liked to believe that he healed quicker now after being to the hospital so many times. _I wonder if I went as much before I lost my memories._

The teen flipped off his lights and lay back in his bed. He thought about getting out of the hospital tomorrow and what he was going to do when he did. Soon his eyes were closing on their own and he let out a deep breath before closing them himself and trying to go to sleep.

Touma lay on his back, eyes closed, breathing slowly and softly, when the door to his hospital room opened up. Light from the dim hallway seeped into the room, and the shadow of a tall, broad-shouldered man draped across the floor and up the wall next to Touma's window. The man in the doorway walked inside, closing the door behind him until it was just a crack open. Both opening and closing the door made very little noise, as did the following steps he took to reach the center of the room.

The figure was three times as large as the boy on the bed himself. He stood there in a fancy purple coat with fur on the hood, and wore a light blue hat with a rim all around it. Under his purple coat that was open in the middle, he had on a white button down and a black vest. Around his neck and dangling over the black vest he was wearing was a golden cross, studded with diamonds.

This man stared at the boy lying on the bed in front of him. The two were illuminated solely by the moonlight coming in through the window, but it gave the man a good look at the kid's face. He showed no emotion at all as he reached to his side and pulled out a knife in one simple motion. When he removed the foot-long jagged knife from its sheath, a piece of moonlight caught on it and bounced onto Touma's left eyelid. The man walked to the side of the kid's bed closer to the window, and he lifted up his knife…

Kamijou Touma opened his eyes, and he rolled to the right fast. He fell roughly off his bed but it was better than being up there where a knife just carved straight through the mattress where his chest had been a second ago. The boy hit the ground hard and jumped up in a panic, "Who are you?!"

The figure ripped his knife through Touma's mattress and stood back up straight to look the kid in the eyes. "Your reflexes are sharp kid, I'll give you that." He flipped the knife in his hand and grabbed it by the tip. The man threw his blade forward and Touma dove left, though he still heard the thud behind him of the weapon imbedding in the wall. He spun after diving around to shout at the guy again, but the man had jumped over the bed to the side Touma had fallen on first, ripped the knife from the wall, and was already raising it up again.

"Whoa!" Touma pushed backwards and the knife the man brought down went inches in front of his face. "What are you-" he pulled his body left and dodged a swipe. "Trying to do-" he leaned back and another slash went right over him. "Stop!" Touma yelled, pulling his right hand back and leaning forward to get off the defensive.

"23- Protect," the man said, lifting his left hand and pointing his index and middle fingers up while the rest were curled into a fist. Touma's fist got within three inches of the man, before a thin veil of blue surrounded him and the kid's hand smashed into it instead. As soon as Touma's hand hit the magical barrier though, the magic shattered and the figure leapt back as well to avoid the fist. He landed on Touma's bed and smirked down at the teen who kept his fist raised and was glaring at him harshly now. "Imagine Breaker," the strangely-dressed man began. He twirled his knife around and then stuck his arm out and pointed the tip straight at the teen, "Lives up to its reputation. You on the other hand..."

Touma's eyes opened huge and his jaw dropped. Out of the corner of his eyes he noticed something flying towards him fast. His enemy seemed to notice it as well and rose up his hand again to create another barrier. Touma had no such magic, so when the figure slammed into his hospital room's window at sixty miles per hour, all he could do was raise up his arms for some sort of feeble protection.

Glass shattered and a woman came flying through the window. She hit the wall above the knife mark the man on Touma's bed made by throwing his blade a minute ago, and she left a huge crack in the plaster. Some of the glass from the window slammed into the lightbulb on the ceiling and it exploded, while another shard flew on Touma's left side so close to his body that some of his bandages ripped and blood splashed out of a fresh cut.

He winced but waited another second and then let out a deep breath of relief. The boy lowered his arms and spun his head left, only to freak out at the sight of the woman dented into his wall. She had long red hair, wore a black cloak from neck to feet, and she had a gun clenched in her right hand, but her eyes were what really disturbed him. Her eyes were wide open the size of golf balls and they stayed like that perpetually staring back towards the open window she smashed through.

"Tanker, why did you-" the man on Touma's bed stopped speaking as the woman pressed off the wall fast and dropped to the floor. It was just in time too, as another figure flew through the window like a missile and slammed a sword into the wall where that red haired woman just was. She jabbed her sword so hard that she buried it in the wall all the way to the hilt, sending over two feet of steel into the foundation of the room so that the tip was actually in another room over. The wind from this woman flying inside at a hundred miles per hour slammed into Touma and he lifted off the ground.

The teen with spiky black hair hit the ground behind him and rolled down past his bathroom almost to the door of his room. Right before he reached though, the door flung open and slammed into his back, making the teen 'Oof' loudly and roll back the other way.

Touma jumped to his feet, tired of being knocked around, but he was so lost as to what was happening that he did not know what to do. A glance towards his bedroom's door showed a woman with two curved machetes sprinting through his entrance, only to be slammed in the back by a fireball that made her fly right by Touma's side. "Kamijou! Focus!" A woman yelled on his other side and he spun away from the red haired man he just recognized in his doorway. He turned and also realized he recognized the woman yanking her sword out of the wall, but it was not fast enough to stop the two lunging at Touma.

One rose up his serrated dagger and the other her pistol, but the young man running through the hall at the start of the room yelled, "INNOCENTIUS!"

Despite the weapons coming right at him, Touma still thought in panic, _In a room this small?!_ He thought this right before a massive flaming demon rose out of the ground around Stiyl and curved above him so its entire torso and face were on the ceiling looking down at the enemies.

The woman who the man first attacking Touma called Tanker darted her eyes up, then back down, and she fired anyway despite the flaming fist flying towards her. Touma pulled right as hard as he could, but still felt a strong jolt on his upper left side that was followed by an excruciating amount of pain. "Ahh!" He flew backwards with blood flying out of him.

"Kamijou!" Kanzaki yelled towards the teen falling to the ground. With a furious look in her eyes she spun to the three on the opposite side of the room as Stiyl's flame demon that moved in between them and Touma's writhing body.

The heat of the massive flame demon and sight of the angered woman next to it was disheartening to the enemies. "Facing a Saint is not in our best interest at the moment," the blonde woman with curved blades said as she leaned back against the wall behind her with a hesitant expression on her panting face.

The man in between the two frowned but he agreed with her sentiment. "Tanker, Slicer, with me- move!" He yelled it because the woman with a long black ponytail in front of them swiped her katana, and it suddenly looked like there were a dozen blades coming for them. The tall man grabbed the two women with him before they even knew what was happening and he leapt backwards out the window of the hospital room.

A dozen slashes flew around the room, and Stiyl yelled out as one came close to his back, "Watch it!" He had run forward to check on Touma, but he felt one of those slashes move through his hair. A couple strands of his long red hair whooshed up into the air then lowered down on Touma's bed, right over the slash marks the man who originally attacked Touma left in the mattress. "Hey, hey Kamijou get a grip," he shook around the boy on the floor.

Kamijou Touma opened his eyes and he winced as he looked to his left shoulder. Stiyl moved the hand he was grabbing Touma by the shoulder with and the spiky haired teen winced at the sight of the deep graze on his upper arm right at the curve of his shoulder. "The bullet didn't get stuck in you," Stiyl said, trying to give a positive to the bullet wound.

"Who, were those guys?" Touma muttered as he tried getting up. Stiyl stood up and reached down a hand, and Touma lifted his right and let the taller teen pick him up.

Kanzaki walked towards the window and she looked out and down towards the street level. "That's what I'm going to find out," she said, then hopped out his window without a second's hesitation.

Touma grabbed his left shoulder with his right hand and he staggered towards the window too. He was pretty bloody and in a lot of pain, but he wanted to know who these guys were too. "What do you think you're doing?" Stiyl asked the teen's back. "You can't make that jump-" Touma agreed but he wanted to look outside anyway. He stepped closer to the window but was not looking where he was walking and slipped on a blanket that was thrown off his bed. Stiyl froze with his jaw wide open as the teen in front of him looked like a cartoon character in the ridiculous way he did a straight-up dive out of the fifth floor window with a stupefied expression on his face.

Stiyl lost his shocked expression and he sprinted to the window himself, shouting, "Kanzaki!" The woman in a low-cut white tee was glaring down the road to her left, but she snapped her head up when she heard Stiyl's shout. Her eyes opened wide like the boy's dive-bombing her.

The swordsman, and one of only twenty Saints in the world, leapt up in the air and she caught Touma with one arm. She landed on the side of the hospital and skid down the side of it before jumping off and landing back on the street. "Thanks," Touma told her, his face pale and his eyes unfocused. He shook around his head to shake off his dizziness and then tried focusing down the road. "They're getting away," he mentioned.

The woman who was looking at him carefully to see how he was, spun her head and glared down the road to see the last of the three enemies turning down another street. She took a step but a hand grabbed her arm, and Kanzaki turned to see Touma staring seriously at her. "Who are these guys? Did they attack you too?"

"No," she replied. "Stiyl was watching Index when those two girls came after her. I was still in town thanks to the Endymion incident." She started running forward again and Touma stayed with her as she continued, "They're from the Roman Catholic Church. And they're powerful, the girl I was facing took several direct hits from my sword."

Touma gulped as that was not what he wanted to hear. _They're sending people after Index too. I didn't- wait..._ Touma's eyes opened wide and he shouted, "You two left Index alone?!"

Kanzaki shook her head as she continued to run. "We wouldn't be that foolish. We called Tsuchimikado and he's taking her to a safe house." Touma sighed in relief and was glad he had so many friends in the city. The two of them spun around the next corner and looked down the block to see their three enemies standing in an intersection, apparently waiting for something.

"Stop!" Touma shouted their way. The two women turned, but Touma saw the man with broad shoulders and a purple coat looking to the right down another road. The man did not flinch when Touma shouted at him, and he could see the guy was holding something in his hand and speaking into it.

The man lowered the radio in his hand and finally turned to the two approaching him. The women with him, Slicer and Tanker, stepped in between him and their enemies, but he did not look concerned anyway. "Assassino is on his way."

"Did he take out his target?" Slicer asked, before spinning around her machetes as a warning to the two who stopped only twenty feet ahead of them.

"Target? Who else are you after?!" Touma shouted at the crazy people. The women in black cloaks and the big man wearing purple did not respond, and Touma clenched his right fist hard, lifting it in front of him. Tanker's already naturally large eyes bugged wider and Silcer's grip tightened on her blades. "Tell me what you're after!" He yelled.

"Calm down Kamijou," Kanzaki said, keeping her voice low. Touma glanced at her, somewhat confused as to why she was not attacking these people. Kanzaki was not even looking at them though, her eyes were honed in on the seventh floor of the building to her left on the other side of the intersection.

A man chuckled darkly under his breath and then dropped out of the air like a rock. Touma stumbled a step back as he had no idea where this creepy bald guy came from, but the man was smirking wide as he looked at Kanzaki. "You noticed me. I like a woman with a fight in her." His eyes twinkled dangerously and moonlight gleamed off of his katana.

 _This man is dangerous,_ Kanzaki thought suddenly. Her eyes darted from one enemy to the other, then to her own side as she noticed someone running towards her back. _Even with Stiyl, these are not optimal conditions. Then again, they are not for our enemies either._

"Il Capo," Assassino began as he rode his katana in front of him. "Allow me to have a go at the head of the Kamijou faction. I wish to see this Imagine Breaker for myself."

"It's the real deal," the man in the purple coat said in a pitch less deep than the bald man's. He himself had short black hair that was slicked back and reflected as much light as the serrated knife still in his right hand. The man looked into Touma's eyes and he started in a louder voice, "As you just heard, I go by the name 'Il Capo,' 'The Head' in Italian. I am the leader of Soul."

"Soul?" Touma growled confusedly. "What is that?" Stiyl stepped up on Touma's left side and Kanzaki on his right. The seven of them faced off against each other and the tension was getting thicker by the second.

"On the Pope's orders," Assassino began with a serious expression. He rose his hood and finished, "The elimination of the Kamijou Faction has been ordered."

Kamijou Touma blinked a few times and lost his serious expression, confusing the four enemies in front of him. "Kamijou Faction? What the Hell is that?!"

Stiyl glanced right out corners of his eyes and spoke in a low tone, "We didn't tell you." Touma turned to the taller teen in confusion but saw that Stiyl did not share that look. The red haired man whose hair was longer than the ginger woman's who was staring back at him with bug eyes began, "The Roman Catholic Church isn't the only one that views you as a player. The Russian Orthodox, and, the Anglican church too," he admitted that his own and Kanzaki's church too thought highly of Kamijou Touma. The boy's eyes could not get any wider, at least until Stiyl continued quieter, "You've surrounded yourself with powerful people, or more precisely, they're drawn to you."

"What's this?" Slicer questioned, her voice coming out as a low guttural growl. The blonde woman slashes her swords across each other in front of her and she yelled, "You can't be serious!"

"He has no idea the target on his back," Assassino said while his lips twisted up again, visible below the shadow under his hood.

Il Capo frowned deeply as Touma turned to Kanzaki and asked if she knew about this. When he did, Il Capo lifted up his radio again and turned it on. "Racer," he said in a calm voice that got everyone on the road darting their eyes to him again and quieting down. "I told you to get to the rendezvous. Where are you?"

"There's another one?" Stiyl growled and he glared at the streets around them looking for someone else to be on their way.

The radio in the boss of Soul's hand started crackling, and then the tension on the street disappeared as everyone opened their eyes wide and stared at the walkie talkie. "Ahh, ah-ahh," a quiet woman's sobbing was coming from the other side of the line and the four members of Soul all looked at their leader's radio hesitantly.

"That's Racer's voice," Slicer said, the blonde woman having a hint of nervousness in her voice.

"I knew she was too green to be coming on this mission," Tanker remarked, though her eyes did not leave the radio. The sound kept crackling and they heard quiet mumbles coming from the other side between cries.

"C-Capo," the woman whispered and her voice came out on the empty street. "I, I'm sorry."

"Where are you Racer?" Il Capo asked.

As he finished asking, the street trembled and everyone snapped their heads to the east to see a pillar of black smoke rising into the air. A girl a few blocks away turned her head fast and went wide eyed. Misaka Mikoto gulped and the girl with bloody arms, searching the dark city for a missing hospital patient, wondered what the Hell was happening now.

The night glowed orange beneath the smoke, and then a scream came out of the leader of Soul's radio. Everyone on that street heard panting like whoever was on the other side was running away. "It's still after me," Racer's terrified, choked-up voice came over the radio.

"This isn't right," Assassino muttered. "She was supposed to have the easiest target. The control system to shut down the entire network in one blow."

Il Capo was thinking the same and he pressed the button on the radio again, "Report Racer. What is your status? Did you succeed in your mission?"

"I, I'm hiding now," the woman said, her voice sounding on the verge of insanity. "Oh God, help me," she whispered in sheer terror. Another explosion rocked a different part of the block as the last one, and the woman let out a muffled scream seemingly into her hand.

"What is your status?" Il Capo repeated, but his voice suddenly shifted to a different tone than Touma had heard him use up until now. His voice sounded, threatening. Even when the man was trying to stab him, he had been completely calm. This moment, the sound of his voice, it was completely different from before and everyone noticed it. The young woman they were communicating with over the radio heard it too, and her heavy breathing froze.

Two seconds passed, then her raspy voice started, "I got out, of the car. The men were with me, and, and we took, we only took a few steps towards the building. We knew she was in there, but, but why didn't we know anything about that thing?!" Her comrades looked at each other and then glared towards Touma but the teen looked just as confused as the rest of them. This time though, Kanzaki and Stiyl looked in the dark as well and everyone just continued to stare at the radio.

"He killed all the men," Racer said and then let out a small sob. "I tried attacking him, but he broke my hand, and he broke my ribs. Ahh, I just wanted to- oh my God," she whispered and the terror in her voice had never been higher. Her pitch rose eight notches and she squeaked, "He's coming. I can hear him! Oh my-"

"Ahahahaha! HAHAHAHA!" Hysterical laughter of someone different came over the radio. Every person on the street listening to Racer tensed up, and even Assassino had a bead of sweat rolling down his face. "I found you!" The maniacal voice of a crazy teenage boy shouted.

"I'm sorry! Stop! Ahhh- AHHHH!" Racer's voice screaming for help was immediately followed by bone-crunching noises and squelches. The other members of Soul stared at the radio in shock as everything fell silent for a moment, and then it started crackling again.

"Whoever this is," the voice of the person who just murdered Racer began. Touma's eyes were already huge but he gulped as his suspicions were confirmed. _Accelerator,_ he thought, and he did not know whether this was a good or bad thing. Accelerator, the strongest esper in Academy City, continued speaking into the radio while surrounding by flaming rubble of black cars and a cluster of dead bodies. He had his right foot pressed on the back of a woman's skull, and she was still twitching beneath him even while her arms were lying twenty feet away on either side. "Never show up where I live with guns. And as for Last Order," he continued and Touma's eyes widened even more at the name of the MISAKA System's shortest member, the 20001st copy, and the control for the entire system.

Accelerator's crazed smirk faded from his face and in a seriously scary voice he growled, "She's off limits. Got it?"

Il Capo rose his radio and spoke one word, "Understood." He lowered his radio, then pressed a button on the side that made it start blinking red rapidly.

Assassino spun to the boss and he ground his teeth, but after a single look, he chose to hold his tongue. "This is going to leave a bad taste in my mouth," the assassin muttered angrily.

"They're retreating," Kanzaki stated, and she took a step forward with her sword raised. "Obviously they are at the disadvantage here. We would be foolish to let them go."

"Let us leave?" Il Capo questioned. "I never expected you would." Before they could interpret what that meant, Stiyl, Kanzaki, and Touma all snapped their heads up to see six bright lights coming towards them fast through the sky. The lights dipped down so they were in between skyscrapers, and the sounds of the spinning rotors of three distinct helicopters got louder as they grew closer to the group.

"Stiyl," Kanzaki began, taking a step back as she saw a bright flash from one of the helicopters.

He rose up his hands, and fired two fireballs towards the rockets shooting their way. The rockets exploded in the air behind their enemies on the ground, but more came out of the smoke after that and Kanzaki slashed her glowing sword once, slicing them all into ten pieces each from a distance.

While the two magicians from the Anglican Church focused on the missiles, three of the enemies ran backwards to where ladders were dropping from one of the helicopters. A girl who was only a few streets away heard explosions and helicopters and she was arriving on the street now. She saw the bald man she was fighting earlier getting pulled up onto a helicopter, but something else caught her attention and she turned.

In the middle of the street, between a woman with a katana and a man with long red hair she recognized, and the retreating enemies getting on their helicopters, two people stood ten feet apart. She recognized one of them and her eyes opened up huge at the sight of how bloody his left side was. Il Capo looked into Touma's eyes and he spoke in a dark, threatening, and terrifying voice. "We will be back in full force. This was a test to see if this mission was worth Soul's complete attention, and you now have it. You will not be able to stop us."

"Come back as many times as you want!" Touma yelled, angrily stomping forward and raising his left arm despite how much it pained him to do so. He pointed at the man with an arm soaked in blood from his shoulder to where it dripped off of his fingers, and he yelled, "I'll knock you off that pedestal you think you're standing on! You think you can just come here and attack the people I care about? What kind of world do you live in?!" He rose up his right fist and clenched it hard in front of him, "I'll punch you right out of that closed reality of yours!"

The burly man said nothing for a few moments. Then, in a tone with no emotion in it, he spoke, "The happiness you now hold will turn to dust in your hands. It will slip between your fingers, and by the time I am done with you, your soul will be broken." Touma's heart was speeding up and his entire body covered in sweat. His enemy glared straight into his eyes and finished, "I will make you taste true despair. I do this, in the service of our Lord."

Il Capo spotted Stiyl Magnus and Kanzaki Kaori dropping out of the air and then darting forwards in his direction. He lifted his gaze from Touma, and at the same time rose his knife in front of him, turned it upside down so the blade was pointed at the floor, and let go, saying in a deep voice as he did, "98- Erupt."

The leader of Soul then muttered another word, bent his glowing knees, and leapt backwards so hard he rose fifty feet up in the air to one of the ladders hanging off a helicopter. He did this before his blade hit the ground, but Touma's eyes never left the weapon with a serrated blade as it fell. Kanzaki followed the man with her eyes for a second, before she saw something glowing much closer to her and her eyes darted down to that knife falling to the floor.

"Pull up!" Slicer yelled at the helicopter pilot of the vehicle she was riding. She pulled back inside the helicopter from the side she was leaning out and she put her hands over her head.

Kanzaki saw this out the corner of her eyes, she saw all of the helicopters pulling up, and the man who just leapt all the way to a ladder letting go with one hand so he could hold it in front of him for protection. _In a populated place like this!_ Kanzaki thought while the blade fell to a foot from the floor in front of a spiky haired teen. All the thoughts about the people in the buildings around her were replaced by just the thoughts of him as she sprinted past his side. _Kamijou's too close, and he isn't lifting his hand! He doesn't know what this is!_

The woman with a large bust pressing against her white shirt dropped her sword, she pushed Touma back as she passed him, then her entire body started to glow with a blue light. "Salvare000," she began in a quiet voice, diving forward and creating a bubble around her as she said her magic name. "Be the salvation of those who cannot be saved." Her body strengthened several hundred times with the aura around her growing more solid by the instant, and then the tip of the blade Il Capo dropped touched the ground.

The glowing weapon erupted in light, filling the entire bubble around Kanzaki. The bubble instantly grew a dozen huge cracks on it from top to bottom, making Stiyl and Touma lean backwards, as well as one other girl watching from an intersection not far away. Kanzaki's body fell over the glowing knife though and she tucked her legs in, pulled her arms down, and surrounded the weapon with her hardened body, right before it exploded. The street trembled and the bubble around Kanzaki exploded, sending wind flying out in every direction and dust shooting up with it. _What the_ _Hell type of esper power is that?!_

After a few moments, the wind died down and the dust settled. Everyone looked over to Kanzaki, and Touma sighed a breath of relief as he watched the woman on her hands and knees get slowly up to her feet. She faced away from him do he did not see her hold one of her hands up to her stomach or see the large black mark on her skin stretching under her cut top and to both sides of her torso. Kanzaki's face had an intense expression of pain on it but she ignored it for now as she heard a grunt behind her. She turned and Stiyl looked in between them where a teenage boy who tried stepping forward stumbled to the right instead. Touma lifted his right arm to rub the side of his head that he hit when rolling off his bed, but the pain of lifting his arm was a lot more than what was in his temple at the moment. He groaned and accidentally rubbed blood all over his face by brushing his arm against it, and then as he could see Kanzaki was on her feet and the helicopters were flying away, Touma's mind gave his body the 'ok' to drop. Touma's legs stopped listening to him and he wobbled forward, then in trying to keep himself up he leaned back and wound up falling right off his feet.

The boy with spiky black hair started to fall with closing eyes. As he fell though, he saw someone running towards him from another street closeby. He recognized her face and though initially shocked, something came to mind at the sight of Misaka Mikoto. _You know, the last time she came to visit me in the hospital, she brought cookies and I teased her 'cause they weren't homemade._ The thought of the dinner she made for the two of them made Touma's lips curl up and he let out a single laugh before his head hit the ground and he knocked unconscious.

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the second chapter. We get a look at some more enemies, some allies, and then there's the insane Accelerator scaring the crap out of all of them XD. Let me know what you think in a review below and thanks for all the reviews guys! Glad to have so much feedback after just one chapter! Time for review responses:**

Cyber dragonarmy chapter 1 . Jun 2

ah Nice ane kamito fanfic always been a fan of those. I really enjoyed the chapter and I am looking forward for your next chapter.

 **Thanks! Hope you enjoyed the new one!**

Railgun12 chapter 1 . Jun 2

Ahhh, I love this: Mikoto actually interacting more and more with the Magic side and being recognized as a big factor. Also I love how you describe Anti-Skill actually being professionals, Mikoto arguing her way into being part of the team, being badass yet recognizably her own civilian self. I also did enjoy her feeling excluded from Index and Touma because it is something she would have to deal with. I haven't actually watched the movie since I thought there wasn't much Mikoto in it, and I'm not really interested in non-Mikoto parts of this universe. But I might just to understand your story better. Can't wait to see where you take this.

 **Thanks for the review! I feel like every time we see Skill Out they act as fodder to make the MCs look better, but they should be actually pretty badass guys if they're supposed to be policing people with superpowers! Mikoto sees a little at the end of this chapter, so we'll see what she thinks about that. Glad you liked the first chapter and hope you enjoyed this one!**

Anonymous Noob the 2nd chapter 1 . 23h ago

Oh snap

 **Oh snap indeed. XD Thanks!**

Espada-001 chapter 1 . 23h ago

Well I enjoyed your starting chapter and I'm looking forward to seeing where this all goes. So until next time have a good day and I look forward to the next chapter.

 **Happy to see you here reading my new story! Got some writer's block with the next chapter of Nexus and started writing this, (will get back to Nexus soon), but until then I'm pretty into this one right now so I'm glad you liked it and hope you enjoyed the newest chapter!**

AriaTheLostMelody chapter 1 . 12h ago

what happened to Kamijou? Is he okay? We'll have to wait to find out.

 **He's alive! That red on his bed turns out to be hairs from Stiyl that were cut off, (not that there wouldn't be Touma blood elsewhere in the room though) XD Thanks for the review!**

fangs of death chapter 1 . 1h ago

really good.

 **Thanks a ton!**

Chen chapter 1 . 12h ago

Interesting, looking forward to next chapters

 **Thanks! Hope you liked the new one.**

 **-Thanks again everyone for all the feedback. I do review responses at the end of every chapter, so if you have any questions, predictions, comments, or criticisms about the chapter let me know! Well, 'till next time!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3:**

Misaka Mikoto walked down a main road of Academy City in a section far from her own school and dorm. It was a Saturday and most people were smiling and talking with friends as they wandered the streets. She did not expect to see many people she recognized this far away from her school, so she was not too worried about being seen and for someone to ask her what was wrong. It was the main reason she did not go home that morning too, because she knew Kuroko and her other friends would be able to read her expression instantly.

The girl frowned deeply as she walked, listening to people on her sides who were whispering to each other too loudly to mask their fears.

"Another attack last night?"

"I knew it! War really is coming to Academy City!"

"I heard there was an explosion only a few blocks from here. Want to go check out the damage?" The kid who questioned it was nodded at by his classmate and the two of them went jogging away.

Mikoto stuck her hands in her school uniform skirt's pockets. She closed her eyes for a second and then turned the direction the two boys on her left side just ran off to. She looked that way and thought about a street not too far from there that was blocked off by Anti-Skill that morning, but by the time she left the hospital it had already been opened up again. It was not like any evidence had been left behind that something had happened there other than cracks in the road and a few patches of burnt pavement. There was another area in this part of the city that had a lot more damage done to it, and Mikoto wondered what had happened over there that several cars were destroyed during the night. _They had to be related. Was there another member of that group? Who else did they target?_

She had only arrived on the road that Soul retreated from at the very end of the confrontation. Mikoto thought about how she let that man, Assassino, get away, and how the women with him both looked powerful too. The thought of the burly man who was the last to retreat was what made her shiver though. What he was saying when she arrived on the scene, it was beyond unsettling. _"The happiness you now hold will turn to dust in your hands. It will slip between your fingers, and by the time I am done with you, your soul will be broken… I will make you taste true despair. I do this, in the service of our Lord."_ Mikoto played those words in her head all through the night as she did not sleep very well (at all).

Heaven's Canceller gave her some bandages but she did not want to stay at the hospital and the doctor was not forcing her to. After she had gone with Touma back to the hospital the night before and gotten wrapped up herself, she tried making her way to his room to question him on the events of the night, but Heaven's Canceller told her Touma needed to undergo surgery and get stitches so he sent her away. He told her to go home and rest, but all Mikoto could do was lay back in her bed, impatiently waiting for morning so she could go back to the hospital. When she re-arrived, she found the boy lying on his back covered in bandages, but sleeping peacefully with a small girl next to his bed, her head down on the side of it with her eyes closed too.

She had decided to come back later and give Kamijou Touma some more rest before she tore into him, though she also wanted to have the room to themselves when she did so and was hoping that small nun girl would not be there when she returned. Mikoto kept walking down the street and she moved out of the way as two children came running her direction, laughing and not paying attention where they were going. Although many people were whispering about the events of the night before, the explosions were nothing compared to the insane damage Mikoto remembered from a few weeks ago when the invasion of Academy City by unknown assailants occurred. There were fallen buildings back then along with much more destructive damage done to the roads and transportation systems, so people were less upset about the night prior's activities knowing how much worse they could have been.

Mikoto sighed as she slowed down and came to a full stop. _What am I doing?_ She thought to herself. _I should have just woken him up then and there! I don't know what to do right now._ She kicked her foot forward and frowned, stumped at what she was supposed to do when her mind was so full of questions.

"Oooo…" Mikoto's ears twitched and she got a bead of sweat on the left side of her forehead. "Neeeee…" The girl with shoulder-length brown hair started to turn and she already recognized the voice, but the sight of the person heading her way made her go wide-eyed nonetheless. Kuroko leapt off of the wheelchair she was spinning over, ran a couple of steps, then teleported up in the air above Mikoto with her arms outstretched. "SAMA!" She yelled and threw her arms around her upperclassman.

"Kuroko," Mikoto grumbled in annoyance. She pushed the shorter girl with long pigtails away and frowned at her, "Were you following me?"

Kuroko shook her head as she stood in front of her friend, then winced and she sat down on the wheelchair behind her. She was not in as much pain as recent weeks, but standing for too long still hurt her a lot. The younger girl turned sideways a little while she sat and grabbed a green arm band around her upper right arm. Mikoto's eyes widened and Kuroko nodded, "That's right Onee-sama, I'm here on official Judgement business." The younger girl started looking confused and she continued, "I think the real question, is why are you-" Kuroko stopped as she spotted Mikoto's wrapped arms and her face filled with shock. "What happened?! Are you alright?! When-"

"I'm fine Kuroko," Mikoto said. She thought about how her roommate was asleep when she came in that morning, and she made sure to leave before Kuroko woke up too to avoid having this exact confrontation. _Should go put a long-sleeved shirt on,_ the older girl thought to herself.Mikoto grinned as she came up with a reason on the spot and continued, "I fell last night and scratched up my arms pretty bad, so I was over at the hospital getting these bandages."

Kuroko's eyes widened and then she frowned deeply at her roommate. "You fell?" Mikoto's smug look wiped from her face and she wondered if that was not a legitimate excuse. She wanted to mention the hospital since the less she lied about what she was doing the easier it was going to come out, but she could not think of a good reason to replace, 'an assassin threw ninja stars at me,' with. Kuroko rolled herself closer to Mikoto and looked up into her roommate's nervous expression, "Onee-sama, no lying to me, please," she begged as Mikoto only looked farther up and away.

Mikoto glanced back and saw Kuroko's face looking a little saddened by the idea that Mikoto was hiding things from her again. She turned back and put a hand down on the top of her friend's head. "I'm fine," Mikoto promised. "What business does Judgement have here?" Mikoto asked, trying to shift the conversation despite the upset look Kuroko was still giving her.

The shorter girl sighed and she turned her head to look down the street towards an intersection not far from them. "I'm sure you heard that there was some commotion in the city last night…" Kuroko stopped right at the start of her explanation and she fell silent. She glanced sideways and saw Mikoto's distant gaze, her deep frown, and her suspicions were immediately confirmed. _Onee-sama, what were you involved with? This is-_

"And?" Mikoto asked, waiting for her friend to continue.

"Oh," Kuroko snapped, then nervously continued before her friend could notice she was suspicious of her, "There were several streets where we found signs of violence, so, many members of Judgement were called in to help cordon off sections of the roads until Anti-Skill could finish their investigations. The section I was guarding was not too damaged, only a few marks on the street, though we did see some blood splashed on the floor. Mikoto was nodding along with her friend but at that statement she tensed up and turned to her with big eyes.

"Blood?" Mikoto questioned.

"Yes," Kuroko replied, still looking into the distance. "It was not a lot, but Anti-Skill was able to collect a sample, so…" she faded off as she saw Mikoto tensing up next to her and turned to see the girl nervously looking down at her arms. Kuroko's jaw dropped and her eyes opened wide, but before she could shout a question at her roommate, a radio on her side turned on and she heard the voice of her Judgement Captain, calling her back to a different scene.

"Well, I'll see you later," Mikoto said as Kuroko picked up her radio to respond. The shorter girl lowered it to call after Mikoto, but her name was repeated over the communications device again and she frowned before responding and saying she was on her way. She lowered her radio and watched as Mikoto made it down the road and turned down a different intersection. _Onee-sama,_ she thought, her mouth lowering into a deep frown and her eyes looking sad. _What have you gotten into this time?_

 _They got a sample of my blood?! This is bad. They'll know I was there last night. What if I become under suspicion for… for…_ She stopped panicking and slowed down on the road she turned down and was jogging on. Mikoto thought for a moment and her eyes narrowed, _It's not like the people in charge of this city are on my side. They've been against me this whole time. Hmph, maybe this might actually make them think I won't take it anymore._ Thinking about the scientists in charge of Academy City and some of the science experiments they had done over the years made Mikoto growl.

She started walking again, though she still was a little nervous as she thought about the blood she left behind. _They'll be able to identify it as mine for sure, but what about his?_ She thought about another bloody teen who was out on the streets the night before. _They probably have his blood in the system too considering how often he's in the hospital. Will the scientists in charge go after him now? Now that they know he and I are, are, acquaintances._ She found a word she would use to describe them out loud that made her smirk, even though a piece of her mind was telling her they were not just acquaintances. _Would acquaintances lose sleep because they don't know if the other is okay?_

Quickly shaking that thought from her mind with a couple smacks to her red cheeks, Mikoto turned and tried thinking of something else. _Kuroko was definitely suspicious back there. I can't avoid her forever, but how am I supposed to explain something that I myself don't even understand? Kamijou, you're going to tell me what's happening here._

* * *

Touma sat up on his hospital bed and looked to the side of it where a woman with long black hair tied into a ponytail was sitting. She had come into his room with a strong look on her face, but Touma saw through it and invited her to sit. The second she bent down he saw the pain on her face and asked to see. Kanzaki Kaori originally declined, but he pressed on and she nodded, reaching down and grabbing the hem of her long-sleeved shirt, more modest than the clothing she normally wore which was the clear giveaway to Touma that something was off. She lifted it up right beneath her breasts and Touma's eyes turned huge at the sight of the blackened skin all over not just from burns, but bruises as well.

He asked if she was okay, and she explained that the force of the explosion hurt more than the heat of the blast itself. As she was talking about the internal injuries she learned she had, Touma bowed his head and said, "Thank you." Kanzaki stopped mid-sentence and went wide-eyed while the boy lifted back up his head. "You stopped that explosion with your body, and saved my-"

"Kamijou, you do not need to thank me," Kanzaki said, her voice completely serious. Her cheeks turned a little red and she turned to the side, "You, who saved Index, and the Amakusa, and…"

"Still, thanks," he repeated, and when she looked back he was smiling at her. She slowly lifted the corners of her mouth as well and nodded back, before both of them winced in pain. They saw the other wince at the same time and Touma started laughing while the taller girl tried harder at holding it back. Touma stopped laughing though before the Saint, and she looked at him closely wondering why he started looking so serious all of a sudden. "Kanzaki," he said, making her lean back at the tone of his voice and her cheeks to become redder. "What happened last night? Why did they attack us? Why, are they after me?"

Kanzaki sighed and she leaned back forward near Touma's bedside. "You are now the primary target of the Roman Catholic Church," she explained. Touma's eyes widened huge and she continued, "From what we know, a war is coming. It's not just between Academy City and the Roman Catholic Church, but it will become too big for the Church of England and the Russians to stay out of as well. We had a summit recently to figure out what we would do in the coming war, but we have not yet decided. Even at that summit, your name came up more than once."

Touma slunk back under his covers a little and had sweat drops on both sides of his face. Kanzaki continued, "Everyone is wondering what side Kamijou Touma will be on in the war." She stopped explaining there, and Touma looked up to see her looking at him questioningly.

"You want to know?" He asked, and when she nodded he scratched his chin thoughtfully and leaned back again. "Academy City's leaders, the people at the top, were doing inhuman experiments," he began. His expression was dark and he continued, "They treated the MISAKA clones like they were less than human, killing over ten thousand of them." Kanzaki stared at him confusedly as she did not really understand what he was talking about. The spiky-haired teen in front of her frowned deeper and continued, "And they used Kazakiri Hyouka in terrible ways, so I'm not on their side at all… but, I don't like the Catholic Church either. They were going to kill Orsola, and that Vento of the Front was intentionally going after civilians."

The boy ran his hands through his hair and then let out a long, exasperated sigh. "Well, I guess when it comes down to it, I'll just do what I feel I should." Kanzaki's eyes opened wider, then Touma continued with a questioning gaze, "But what about the Kamijou Faction they were talking about? How long did you and Stiyl know about it?"

Kanzaki looked away and she frowned deeply, wincing as she did and making Touma look worried about her. She was hiding the intense pain she was currently in well, but any movements at all were terrible for her. "Every time you involved yourself in the magic world, you revealed yourself to very dangerous people. Some of those times, you had people helping you, powerful people from all different sides. Stiyl and I for example, but also your friends here in Academy City, and even the nuns you befriended in the Catholic Church." Touma frowned deeper every time she mentioned a group of people and he thought about all the people in those groups who he cared for. The older girl continued hesitantly, "During the recent invasion of Academy City, we've ascertained that Vento of the Front's primary objective was you, not Index, not Academy City, but you were the target of The Pope, and yet you came out as the victor. You were the only one victorious in that battle too. Academy City and the Roman Catholic Church each had their individual goals, but both failed in some way to complete them, whereas Kamijou Touma and those who are believed to be part of his 'faction' succeeded. So while tensions rise between both factions, they know that there is a third party that neither of them can ignore, and while Academy City may not be targeting you in hopes that you will join their side, the Roman Catholic Church has no such notions and can only see you as a potential enemy."

Touma let all of that sink in for a minute, then looked up at the ceiling and moaned loudly, "Such misfortune!" He slouched his shoulders and looked back at Kanzaki who was shocked that was all he had to say after all that. "But," he continued, and a small smile came to his face again. "We handled it this time, and we'll stop them again if they come back."

Kanzaki stood up fast and the terrible pained expression on her face was only masked by her annoyance and frustration. "Do you not understand? The entire world thinks of you as an important player in the war to come! How can you be so, relaxed? Do you not regret your decisions to get involved in-"

"Of course not," Touma interrupted, not letting her finish another word of that sentence. Kanzaki's eyes started to widen but Touma looked at her seriously and said, "Stopping the Catholic Church's plans, saving Orsola, saving Academy City, I don't regret any of it. Even if it did put a target on my back, I'd rather that than any of those people I helped getting hurt. Though," he rubbed the side of his head with his right hand, "this thing really has gotten me into a whole lot of trouble this time." He gazed at his right hand, his Imagine Breaker, and he let out another huge sigh as he wondered why he had so much bad luck in his life.

He did not notice, but the woman in front of him had started smiling again when the shock wore off her face. _Kamijou, I don't know what the Church of England is going to do in the war. I don't know whether we will fight the Roman Catholic Church to prevent them from tipping the scales in the power balance of magical organizations, or if we will fight Academy City to stop them from pushing their science on our world. I don't know what the Church of England plans to do, but I, I will do what I can to help you._

* * *

The hospital that Touma was in kept him there for another day before the boy finally complained enough to be released. He left with the small girl who had stayed in his hospital room almost the entire time he was there. The two were walking across the city and they came to an area the two sometimes walked through but had more meaning now than it did any time before.

"Hey Touma, was Arisa…" Index stood next to Touma and faded off before finishing her question. The two were standing at the same spot they had met Arisa Meigo only a week ago, staring at where the girl had been playing her music for everyone to hear. They succeeded in stopping Ladylee and saving Shutaura, but they were both still sad Arisa was gone.

Touma knew what Index was asking and he shook his head once. He looked down and rose his right hand to stare at, "No, because I could touch her with my right hand." He pushed off the railing he was leaning back on and started walking forward, saying, "So she wasn't an illusion. She loved music and loved making people happy with music. She was just, a normal girl," he smiled and finished.

The boy looked back and motioned with his head in the direction they were walking to get to his dorm. Index smiled at what he said and ran over to his side. "Yeah, you're right!" She agreed. The small nun in a white outfit that covered up most of her skin and a hat that had a long white covering behind her covering her hair came to a stop as Touma did next to her. Index looked at him in confusion for a moment, then she heard something and turned the same direction he was facing.

They looked past other people on the path, over some bushes, over all the skyscrapers of the city. The space elevator was gone, having been dismantled over the last few days due to its structural insecurity after the opening ceremony. The CEO of the company in charge of it was missing and the Board of Directors of Academy City called for it to be taken down. The two staring out where Endymion used to stand held their breaths as they heard a voice, one that none of the other people walking around them seemed to hear.

 _"MMmm, ahhAH-mm, Hmmmm…"_ It was a tune they each recognized very well. The song their friend had not finished writing the words to when they first met, who wrote them at Touma's house with Index, who promised the girl that they would sing it together as a duet. Touma's eyes widened and his face gained a look of surprise, while Index's mouth rose into a huge open smile and she gasped in amazement.

The voice stopped singing and Index spun to her side, "Touma, did you hear that?"

He nodded back with just as big a smile now, "Yeah." The two of them headed back towards the dorm they lived in together, thinking on the past week with smiles on their faces. Touma sighed while putting his hands in his pockets. _I might have people coming after me now, after my friends too, but I also stopped the northern hemisphere from getting blown up, so I think the week's been good overall._ He chuckled under his breath then glanced to his side to see Index skipping happily with him. _She doesn't seem to get what went on the other night either. It's not like I like lying to her, but what's the point in telling her there are people after her, again? It's not like they've ever stopped. People are always coming after Index for the grimoires she has memorized… though, now they're coming after her because of me._

His smile started to fade but he shook his head to get those negative thoughts out of his head. _Since when did I become important to people like them? More important than Index even,_ he grumbled under his breath, "Such misfortune." Index looked at him and asked if he said something, and he shook his head and replied, "It's nothing. Hey, you want to go get some food?" Index's eyes lit up and started sparkling and he added, "I'll get you whatever you want."

Most people would say 'my treat,' but since Touma paid for all of her meals anyway, there was no point in mentioning that part. Telling her he would get her whatever she wanted was dangerous though and he knew it, but he figured his wallet could take it today. The two of them headed towards their favorite restaurant, and the sky was starting to get darker as night fell over Academy City. Touma tried to focus only on the meal ahead and stop worrying so much about the future, and listening to Index list every food she planned on eating was helping him with that.

Right as they reached the restaurant, they heard a voice call to them from closeby and turned to look past the building they had walked to. Down the sidewalk a little, a man was walking their way who Touma tilted his head to the side trying to pinpoint where he had seen him before. He glanced down at Index but the nun shrugged as she did not know who he was either, and they both turned back to the figure wearing a black uniform with gray padding on his shoulders, chest, knees, and elbows. The man may have been armed, but he had a friendly expression on his face and as he reached the two younger people, he bowed his head to Touma and made the boy even more confused.

"Umm, who are you?" Touma questioned.

"My codename is Crow 7," the man with slicked-back dirty blond hair began. "Second-in-command of the Black Crows," he explained which made Touma open his eyes wide in understanding. The man smiled that the boy realized who he was, and then he continued, "I need to thank you, as from what I have heard you were responsible for saving Captain Sequenzia on the night of the Endymion incident." He bowed his head again and Touma waved him off nervously as some people were looking over at them wondering what was going on.

The boy scratched the back of his head and began, "It really wasn't anything. Thanks though," he said, and then motioned at the building behind him so Index would go inside.

The girl smiled at the soldier in front of her and she gave him a little wave before spinning and continuing her excited talk about food on her way inside. Crow 7 watched the two enter the building and Touma gave the guy a small half-smile himself one more time before turning and walking in after Index. The man turned away once they were inside and he continued towards his home after a long day on the job. He sighed in exhaustion but smiled softly thinking about Shutaura and how hard she had them working these past few days. _The Board of Directors has been on our case since the incident, questioning each of us to make sure we did not know anything about Ladylee's plans. At least now we've finally gotten back to work._

The soldier whose private security organization was one of the most secretive in Academy City, and thus could not give his name out while in uniform, started whistling to himself as he headed home. The night sky was clear tonight as he reached his neighborhood and he watched the stars as they came out one by one. He thought back a few nights to when he released Shutaura from the cell Ladylee put her in, and how his Captain took a rocket up into space to take care of the CEO herself. The Black Crows' loyalty came into question, and not only him but all of their team chose to stand behind Captain Sequenzia, which was a main reason the Board of Directors decided to keep their organization alive.

 _It's been quite an exciting week,_ the man thought as he swiped his key card at his front door. He entered the small building in one of the outer districts of Academy City, outside of the main sections full of large skyscrapers, in one of the few areas that had actual housing. Eighty percent of the population of the city were students, and most of those who were not stayed in apartments in the major districts, but an apartment was nowhere to raise a family. He stepped inside his house and instantly got a whiff of something amazing coming from his kitchen. "Mmm," he hummed loudly, hoping the woman in the kitchen would hear the excited tone in his hum. "That smells delicious Karen. What are we having-" he stopped at the edge of the door into his dining room/kitchen area, because he noticed the lights in his living room were off, and the blinds were closed, something unusual as they were always open when he returned home.

He heard no response from the kitchen and his right hand darted to his side, grabbing his pistol and pulling it out in under a second. He ran to the wall next to the opening into his living room and put his back against it, became completely quiet, and then growled after hearing the scared breathing in the next room, "It's going to be okay. You're both going to be fine."

"I should have expected as much," a very deep voice began in his living room. "Come in here, Crow 7," the man continued, and the lights in his living room turned on. Crow 7's gears were spinning fast, because the voice he heard tell him to come inside sounded like it came from his couch on the other side of the room as the light switch just past the entrance of the room on its left. _Right behind me,_ he realized, as the switch was on the other side of the wall he was leaning against. He moved off the wall fast, and then an open hand came crashing through that wall and clenched into a fist, only to grasp at nothing.

Crow 7 rose his gun and sprinted through the entrance of his living room while one of the assailant's hands was still through his wall. He knew there were at least two in there, and was hoping it was just the two of them which he was correct in thinking. While one of them had a hand stuck through the wall, he pointed his gun at the other's head, but froze and his gun started shaking in his hands. The man sitting on his couch sat next to a woman in a dirty apron, her mouth gagged with a white cloth, her red hair a mess as she sat there with eyes as wide as saucers, shaking her head at her husband for him not to move. The figure on the couch had on a dark blue cloak, with the hood down, revealing the thick black cross tattoo on his scalp.

"Shh, shh," the man hushed in a deep voice to the six year old boy sitting afraid in his lap. Assassino had his right hand around the back of the boy's neck in what could be seen to some as a caring hold, resting down around the blond boy's head and brushing his cheek. The kid did not look to really understand what was going on, but the terrified look on his father's face as he held a shaking gun in his direction made the kid start whimpering in fear, saying his father's name in muffled cries. The man whose hand tightened on the boy's head to keep him from moving away began quietly, "Lower your weapon, you do not wish for this to get, messy." The hand on the boy's cheek lowered down so it was closer to his neck, and the woman on his side let out a muffled yell at her husband to lower his gun.

Crow 7's eyes were bugging out, and they darted to his side at the man closer to him who ripped his hand out of the wall. The man was over eight feet tall, had a bald head and cross tattoo like the man on the couch, but despite his massive figure, the soldier could tell the one on the couch was a hundred times more dangerous. That did not mean he could ignore this other man though, and he spun his gun to point it at him and yelled, "Stop moving!" as the man took a step towards him.

"I will not repeat myself again, Lieutenant," Assassino said. He stood up and gripped the boy on his lap with one hand around the throat. Crow 7's face took on an expression of total horror and he spun his gun around, only for the man in a blue cloak to lift his boy's head so it was right in between the barrel of the gun and Assassino's own head. The soldier's wife was sobbing and she tried moving off the couch, only for Assassino's other hand to swing around and hit her in the side of the face, knocking her unconscious with a single blow.

"Mom," the kid cried out.

"You bastard," Crow 7 snarled with bloodthirsty hate in his voice.

"You have three seconds, or they die," Assassino said calmly. Before the man whose house was infiltrated could shout something at him, the Italian assassin continued, "One." Crow 7 closed his mouth, thought hard, got ready to beg and bargain, only to stop as he heard, "Two." **Clank.** Assassino lowered the boy in front of him and stared over at the gun on the floor at the Black Crow's feet. "See, that wasn't so hard." He dropped the boy in his hands, while the big man next to Crow 7 grabbed him around the back and put him in a full nelson so he could not resist anymore. "Now," Assassino began and he walked past the child crying on the floor next to his mom's unconscious body, and stepped straight up to Crow 7 so the two could speak face to face from only a foot away. "I have an offer for you, one you absolutely _cannot_ refuse."

* * *

 **A/N Uh-oh. Assassino returns, but why did he go after Crow 7? What are his plans? Hope you enjoyed the chapter, and thanks for reading! Next time there's more MikotoxTouma stuff, so don't worry if you didn't see much of it this chapter. 'Till next time guys!**

Cyber dragonarmy chapter 2 . Jun 3

 **Thanks for the review!**

MrQuestionMark chapter 2 . Jun 3

Really enjoying this so far!

It's been a while since someone has properly looked at and developed the term 'Kamijou Faction' and it's nice to see someone that has really only seen the anime doing so in this form. While I'm not so sure if I can expect to see characters that are strictly in the novel appearing, I do like how you've set things here up Endymion and with the being practically after it and the events that are going to happen too.

Really good job with this so far, especially the use of the magic. It can be pretty hard but I'm enjoying the use of it so far as well as the progression of the story. Look forward to more!

 **Thanks! Glad you like it! I heard the term Kamijou Faction used once, and I was like 'who would be a part of that?' and since during the Invasion of Academy City arc Mikoto got involved with Touma, she's gotta be on everyone's radar now. (Not that if they've been watching Touma they wouldn't already know they were friends :P ). Some novel-only characters may appear as I am slowly starting to read those, but anyway, thanks for the review!**

Resha Tsubaki chapter 2 . Jun 3

From the look of it, this story will be epic. You are doing an excellent job so far and the characters are IC. Can't wait for the next chapter! :)

 **Awesome! Glad you like it! Thanks for the review!**

UCCMaster chapter 1 . 10h ago

Is it just me or is one of those assassins' power to pull off Pokémon moves via TM names? Protect and Erupt?

 **Haha didn't even know Erupt was a TM! Il Capo had some incredible spells, we'll see what else he knows soon (maybe Thunder, or Solar Beam, or Overheat? XD). Thanks for the review!**

Railgun12 chapter 2 . 10h ago

I am unreasonably happy to think about Mikoto making Touma a meal (yay Ruiko!) and them eating it together. And then of course it all goes to pot.  
The bad-guys team running into Accelerator and getting utterly curbstomped is awesome beyond words.

 **Glad you liked the home-cooking and epic Accelerator scene! Thanks!**

Guest chapter 2 . Jun 3

"Guess you'll have to pay off Tsuchimikado some other way then," that's not even funny Stiyl, and two questions to ask:  
1\. Should Touma get (extremely) angry at Accelerator for his killing?  
2\. "Touma's heart was speeding up and his entire body covered in sweat." you're not making Touma feeling scared at someone's empty threats, are you? That just sounds kinda dumb if you ask me.

 **I don't know about Touma being more mad at Accelerator for killing, since he already knows Accelerator has killed 10,000+ people. And for the second one, he had just been shot by the guy, and missiles were currently flying over his head, and he heard that they went after Index and Last Order, so when the guy makes a threat after that I don't think he'd consider those threats as empty. Anyway, thanks for the review.**

Guest chapter 2 . Jun 4

This is getting good. There are not enough mikoma pairings out there and even fewer that are good like this one.

 **Thanks!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4:**

Kamijou Touma walked towards a large domed building ahead of him and he gulped at the sight of armed men at the front doors. They looked at him closely, then both men smiled and the teenager gained a small look of confusion on his face before thinking back to two nights earlier. He thought about a man dressed very similar to these guys and sighed in relief as the door opened behind them and he saw inside the large dome someone he recognized.

She turned his way, wearing the same black uniform as the rest of her men had on. Shutaura Sequenzia turned her head and looked out the doors at Touma who came to a stop in between the guards just outside, then the girl smiled at him and Touma's eyes widened more at the, _friendly_ , look she was giving him. _Wow, she's really changed,_ he thought with a growing smile as he continued to walk into the building. "Hey Shutaura, what's going-" he slowed down towards the end of his question and did not finish it as the young woman in front of him moved to the side a little.

Behind Shutaura stood an annoyed girl with chestnut colored hair who darted her gaze to Kamijou and then looked away with a humph as he stared at her in surprise. "Biribiri?" He questioned, and the girl's face turned red as she spun back to glare at him angrily. "What are you doing here?"

Mikoto opened her mouth, but Shutaura spoke first, "Misaka Mikoto came to me with questions about Arisa Meigo." Touma sweatdropped and he gazed back at Mikoto who was looking really annoyed, and he wondered if she looked that way because Shutaura had not told her anything, or worse, told her the truth. "I actually wanted to speak with both of you however," the woman continued, making Touma tilt his head confusedly and Mikoto turn to the woman in surprise as she was the one to approach Shutaura and until now had not heard anything about this.

 _I thought she was calling him here to explain it to us! Damn it, and I told him I would trust him when he said Arisa-san was okay._ Mikoto looked down at her feet with a troubled expression for a few moments, before looking back up at Shutaura who was staring right back her way. Mikoto's eyes widened a little, and then she noticed that a dozen other Black Crows in the room were looking her way, and so was Kamijou Touma. Her face turned more red and she had to get attention off of her so she snapped, "Well what is it?!"

Shutaura did not fret that Mikoto shouted at her, actually it made her chuckle a little. "You're the same as ever Misaka-san," she whispered, in a voice so quiet Mikoto wondered if she even heard it, though it was hard to imagine she really did since the voice she just heard should not have come from the woman in front of her. Shutaura continued loudly and more assertively while Touma walked closer to the center of the Black Crow Unit's Headquarters, "Academy City's Board of Directors has all of their organizations working around the clock in preparations for the war many are saying may break out soon."

Touma nodded at this woman but still had a confused look as to why he had been called here. Shutaura continued, "At the scenes of the most recent incidents, we discovered two blood samples: that of you, Kamijou Touma. And that, of Misaka Mikoto." Touma's eyes opened wide and he spun to Mikoto, looking at the girl who looked away with a deep frown as she had not mentioned anything about what happened to her when they met in the hospital the next day. He had avoided all of her questions and she thought that by not telling him she was getting him back, but now they were in an awkward situation because of it.

"You were hurt?" Touma questioned worriedly, stepping towards the younger girl.

"I'm fine," she snapped at him. The girl glared into his eyes and rose her right hand, pointing at him accusingly, "What I want to know is why that guy came after me in the first place!" The spiky haired teen in front of her looked horrified and Mikoto's accusing look faltered a little.

 _They went after her too?! Of course, that's why she was still out there! I thought, she told me she just saw the explosions when she was walking back, but it was too long after she left…_ Touma's eyes focused on the forearm past the hand she was pointing and his eyes opened wide as saucers. Mikoto saw where he was looking and she dropped her arm back to her side, reaching over with her left and pulling the long sleeve down to re-cover the bandages still wrapping her arms. _I should have realized! She wasn't dressing for cold weather, she was hiding her injuries from me! Did one of them hurt her?! They must have made her bleed._ "I'm sorry," he began, but she interrupted him with a shout.

"I don't want you to be sorry," she snapped. Mikoto stepped towards him angrily and continued, "I want to know why those guys came after us!"

Shutaura stepped in between the two before this could get any uglier, and she began in a tone meant to brighten the mood, "Our Civil Affairs Resolution Intervention Unit, or the Black Crow Unit, has been tasked by this city to make preparations for the war with the Roman Catholic Church. I do not know where the two of you stand," she continued, but she smiled back and forth at each of the other teens who were still looking at each other over Shutaura's head. "However, the people who attacked you were confirmed by a source to be members of the Catholic Church. In that case, we will provide you with help if you are going to fight them."

"Huh?" Touma and Mikoto asked, turning in towards the girl who suddenly gained their attentions.

Shutaura smirked as that worked well at getting their attentions back on track. "We were not ordered to do this directly by the Board, but I have a great deal of autonomy in what the Black Crows prioritize." Touma was realizing what she was saying and his eyes widened even more as she turned and looked into them. "You saved my life, so I'm going to do what's in my power to protect yours. Besides, it's not like our two goals don't overlap."

"Goals?" Touma asked.

"You want to survive, we want to stop the Roman Catholic Church," Shutaura remarked and smirked at the boy in front of her who leaned back with a lowered jaw. "Plus, I really do want to help you." She promised the teen who closed his jaw and could see from the black-haired girl's eyes that she was not lying. He glanced around the room and the other Black Crows were all smiling his way too, grateful like that Crow 7 he met the other night that he saved their Captain.

"And why did you want me to be here for this?" Mikoto snapped, making Shutaura turn fully around to see the shorter girl closer to her now. "Couldn't you have just told that idiot?" She motioned at Touma without saying his name.

"Because I want to protect you too, Misaka-san," she replied. The look in her eyes as she said it made Misaka start taking rapid, staggered breaths and she was trying hard to make sense of what was going on.

 _Was she, an experiment by the city? That's all I can think of, if this girl really is, Arisa Meigo?! How can this make sense?! They aren't the same-_ Mikoto thought about escaping Endymion, she thought about that little nun looking at Shutaura and saying Arisa's name like she recognized her, and this woman nodding like it was true. "I, don't understand," Mikoto whispered.

Touma rubbed the side of his head and he had no idea how this was going to play out. _Not that I had any idea that something like that could happen either,_ he thought to himself. _But I already knew a lot about magic, so jumping straight from science and esper abilities to something like, like miracles?! It's not gonna be easy for her._ He took a step forward to help explain to the girl who was so confused, confused at why this woman and Arisa Meigo seemed so similar, confused at why she was being attacked by the Roman Catholic Church, and confused at what any of it had to do with him.

"You see…" Shutaura began.

"Captain!" someone shouted from the front of the room. The three teens turned, the rest of the Black Crows gathered around the room looked over as well, and everyone stared at the entrance where a man staggered inside. He was grabbing his stomach and his right hand had red all over it. Two men came in behind him, the guards from outside, and they were looking at this man with messy blond hair in shock.

"Crow 7!" Shutaura Sequenzia shouted. She started running across the room while the rest of her men got out of their seats behind computers, or jogged over as well. "Lieutenant!" Shutaura shouted as she got closer to him. The man's head was bowed and she ran all the way up to him, looking down at his hand and telling him to move it so she could get a look at his wound. "Sean," she whispered once she was close enough that she was right in front of him. As the leader of the Black Crow Unit, only she knew the names of all her men, and this man lifted his head and looked into her eyes with ones full of tears.

Touma and Mikoto were jogging towards the two in the point between the front of the room and where they had been gathered in the center a few seconds ago. Mikoto grumbled as they headed over, "You're not getting out of it this time. You're going to tell me everything-" Touma stopped walking and Mikoto stopped talking to him as she saw the absolutely horrified expression on his face. She heard something else that made her stop speaking but she did not understand what it was until she turned back forward. Mikoto froze, her eyes opened three times wider like all of the men in the room around her, staring at the red blade sticking out of Shutaura's back.

Crow 7 looked straight into Shutaura's eyes, and the woman in front of him had so much confusion in her own. "I'm, sorry," he said to her through gasped breaths.

"You bastard!"

"Take him down!"

Black Crows ran over and they tackled Crow 7 to the floor. Others grabbed Shutaura and shook her around, trying to seal up the hole on her chest that went all the way through to her back.

Touma was walking towards her slowly, his eyes as wide as when he heard the initial _squelch,_ when he saw the splash of blood come out of her back. _"The happiness you now hold will turn to dust in your hands."_ He did not hear the girl on his left side yelling his name, or see anything other than the girl he watched being shaken by her men as they all gathered around her. Two of the Black Crows pulled Crow 7 up to his knees and one punched him in the face. The other got him up again, and she shook him by the shoulders, "Why?! Why would you do that?!"

"I- I had to," he said through muffled sobs. "My family," he said in a gasped out voice. Touma froze and the men and women all glaring at Crow 7 started staring in confusion. "I, I had, to do it." He looked down at the body of the woman in front of him and his sobs came to a stop. He saw what he had done, but he gulped and his face hardened. "And I'm sorry, everyone," he finished. The woman who shook him by the shoulders finally took a good look at the man in front of her, and unlike all of them, he was wearing a black jacket over his normal uniform. His jacket was slightly open down the middle and she reached down, grabbing part of the front and moving it to the side.

Everyone around him stared at his body in confusion seeing his entire torso wrapped in small pieces of paper. Every single one of the pieces of paper had a red cross in the center of it, and Touma snapped out of his shocked trance as he saw them all. "Runes," he whispered. The girl next to him stopped shouting and she looked at him in utter confusion, then wide eyes as he started sprinting forward. "Everyone move! Get away from there!" Touma yelled.

One of the soldiers kneeling next to Shutaura's body turned and looked back ten feet into Touma's eyes with a confused look. Another, the woman who revealed Crow 7's paper-covered torso, lifted her gaze back up to her comrade's eyes and saw them dry, but looking so sad as he stared back into her own. "May God have mercy on our souls," he said, and his eyes closed. As soon as the word 'souls' came out of his mouth, every single one of the red crosses on his body started to glow.

 _I'm not going to make it!_ Touma thought. The man who looked at him in the eyes started turning back around, other Black Crows stood up or turned around and tried running, and the papers surrounding Crow 7's body ignited. _**Ch-**_ **BOOOM!**

Misaka Mikoto saw a flash and it blinded her. She crossed her arms in front of her face and then felt the heat. It was unbearable. She screamed and leaned back, while the sound of the explosion thundered around her, while the heat from the blast pressed against her. She was so hot, but she was not burning, and she lowered her arms from in front of her face and opened her eyes. Mikoto's eyes opened huge and she saw a familiar sight, one she had witnessed before: Kamijou Touma standing in front of her with his right hand outstretched, pressing into the edge of the massive explosion and parting it so it blasted to her sides. She looked around her and saw the walls of the domed building bursting into flames past the fire at her sides. She saw computers exploding, and debris falling from the ceiling, but what she did not see, were people.

 _Where did everyone go?_ That was her first thought. She looked in front of Touma's shaking right hand and towards the epicenter of the explosion, and as she looked past him she saw the emotions on his face, the frustration and anger and sadness all at once. Mikoto knew where all those people were. Even when the explosion faded and nearly nothing was left of the ones in who were closest to the center of the blast, she knew they were still there. Flames continued to rise even when the explosion was gone; the entire Black Crow Headquarters was engulfed in them.

Mikoto stared at the spot Shutaura got stabbed, the woman who confused her so much and who she thought she was finally going to get answers from. _Arisa…san,_ she thought, somehow believing that the woman she just saw die was the same as the pink haired idol she was friends with. That made this even sadder, but a loud crack on her right side snapped Mikoto out of it and she spun around. The girl looked on all sides of her and saw the flames rising high on the side walls, and already wrapping around the back one far behind her. She snapped her head back up and looked at the exit of the building that was a lot wider now after the explosion, but the sides of the doorway and the top were all in flames.

She sprinted forward and grabbed Touma by the arm, yelling, "We need to go!"

Mikoto ran a step in front of him but was jolted to a stop as the boy did not take a step with her. She spun around and opened her mouth to yell at him again, but stopped and left her mouth agape at the sight of Touma's face. Tears streamed down from both of his eyes as he stared at the spot Shutaura just was. Mikoto's eyes slowly widened more and more, and she imagined Touma standing there on a bridge in front of her, stopping her from purposely running to her death to save the MISAKA clones. _"Having everybody come back smiling without having to lose anything, is my dream." I know. I wanted to believe in that dream too. We, still can…_ She could not even convince herself of that seeing where they were at the moment.

The boy whose dream was collapsing before his eyes was so lost in thought he was oblivious to everything around him. _I was so naive. I was greedy. How could I be so stupid? I was asking too much. Not wanting to lose anything, and everyone to be smiling? What an idiot! Which is more important? I can't always have both!_ **Slap!** Touma's eyes opened huge and he lowered his gaze to a girl standing directly in front of him. Her face was red on the cheeks and she was panting heavily as she looked up from only two feet away into the older teen's eyes. She had so much she wanted to say to him, but she saw the ceiling cracking and she grabbed him by the arm, turning around again and starting to run to the exit without a word. This time though, Touma ran with her, but she did not let go of his arm as they fled. _Of course. There's no question which is more important._

The two got outside, and as they did they heard loud cracking behind them and spun to look back in. The ceiling inside started to collapse and huge chunks fell where they were just standing. They lost sight of the inside of the building a few moments later however, as the walls closest to the explosion began crumbling. Once some of them fell, the rest could not support the building either and in seconds, the entire domed HQ collapsed to the ground. Massive amounts of dust and smoke billowed out from the fallen building, and Touma and Mikoto had to shield their faces with their arms. The black ash was burning hot and they turned and coughed trying to get it out of their lungs as they staggered away from the building, or what was left of it.

The teens made it far enough from the building that the smoke and ash faded around them. Mikoto put her hands on her knees and was still coughing up a lung, but when she turned her head to see how Touma was doing, she saw him standing straight up and staring back towards the building. His eyes were red, whether from his own pain or the ash in his eyes she did not know, and his fists were shaking at his sides in all the emotions she saw on his face. After a few moments, he turned down to look at her and his expression was sad, but he shifted it right when she looked into his eyes and he suddenly looked a lot less sad, but not really angry either. He looked more, uncaring, and it concerned the girl who stood up at his side.

"Ack ack, what's, going on?" She snapped at him, stopping her coughs short and then shaking as she would not let herself cough again despite wanting to. "People are dying," she said, seeing him just frown at her deeply when she asked. His expression softened, but he hardened it again a second later and kept frowning at her. "You have to tell, ack, me what's happening. I don't under-"

"You don't need to understand," Touma replied. He turned around and took a step away while Mikoto gawked at his back. "It really doesn't involve you."

"It definitely does," she shouted and ran after him. She could hear sirens in the distance getting closer and she knew Anti-Skill or Judgement were on their ways. The boy in front of her did not slow down, and instead he sped up like he wanted to get out of there before the police arrived. "Where are you going?!" Mikoto shouted at his back, continuing to run after him.

"Home," he snapped in response. "Stop following me!"

"Not until you tell me why! Why are there people after you? Why are they after me?!"

 _Because of this!_ He spun around and the girl running behind him skid to a short stop so she would not run into him. "Go home!" He yelled down at her. The girl's eyes widened into saucers at the, angry, look on his face. She opened her mouth to respond, but he just continued angrily, "Stop following me around, you annoying middle schooler!" He turned around and a huge grimace spread on his face but he sprinted away twice as fast as before without turning around again.

 _"Annoying, middle schooler?" What did- why would-_ She glared at his back as he ran down the road and turned down a side alley. _Oh no you don't! You're not getting away that easily! And when I catch you I'm gonna-_ Mikoto sprinted forward a few steps, then came to a stop as she heard someone shout at her back. She turned around and saw a team of Anti-Skill running around a corner and pointing her way. "Wait! I'm not-" she looked behind them at the smoking rubble of a building and dropped her jaw as she realized what this look like. "I'm not running from the crime, I just need to-"

"Get on your knees!"

"Stop moving!"

Misaka Mikoto turned her head and her mouth twisted into a deep snarl. "I'm so going to get you back for this," she growled furiously.

Touma stopped running when he figured he was a safe distance away, then leaned against a wall in an alleyway. He was panting hard and he tilted his head back and looked up at the sky. _She's so going to try and get me back for that… no, no I need to stop seeing her. Won't they still be after her anyway? They came after Shutaura just because she knew me- unless they knew she was going to have the Black Crows help me out. Did they all, die, because of…_ Touma ran his hands up through his hair and raked them over his scalp over and over again.

 _I can't involve her further than she already is. She doesn't know anything about magic, so as long as she continues on not knowing, maybe, I could get them to stop going after her. Maybe, all they want is me, and the rest of the Kamijou Faction is just a plus…_ He frowned deeply, thinking about the very same bridge Mikoto was thinking of not long ago. He imagined her trying to run off to sacrifice herself for her clones and how against it he was, how much he wanted it to end in a way where everyone came out of it smiling. _There has to be another way,_ he agreed with his past self. _It might be selfish, but, but_ _I don't want to die. I don't want them to win, but I don't want any more of my friends to die either._

He slid down the wall so his butt was on the floor, then brought his hands in front of his face and stared at them in horror, the reality of it all setting in. _Shutaura's gone. Arisa too. All those Black Crows… and that Crow 7 mentioned his family. Does Soul have them hostage right now? Taking even families- my family! Mom, Dad, Tatsugami, would they even go after you? I, I need help. I can ask Kanzaki, and Stiyl, Tsuchimikado too, but not you. I don't want you to become any more involved with this than you already are. If anything, I wish I could keep you out of it. But you're not like that, you're going to keep trying to get involved, make yourself an even bigger target. If you stop associating with me, they'll have no reason to go after you…_

 _I'm sorry, Misaka._

* * *

"The Black Crows are disbanded," Aleister Crowley said to the teenager in front of him. "I believed they could still be of some use, but it seems I overestimated them. Or perhaps I underestimated this Soul," he added with a small grin on his face. The General Superintendent of Academy City floated upside-down in a tube of strange orange liquid. He resided in the Windowless Building, always receiving news and giving out orders from one place, and the look in his eyes that the Black Crow Unit's destruction was nothing but another possible outcome of his overall plan made Tsuchimikado Motoharu grimace in aggravation.

"We still can't find anything on them," Motoharu began. "All we got from the member of the Catholic Church we captured, is that Soul is a part of God's Right Seat. That's it." The slender teenage boy had spiky blond hair and though inside, wore a pair of dark sunglasses. He had on a green button-down Hawaiian shirt opened down the middle revealing the white tee he had on under it, and wore a pair of blue jeans that he put his hands into its pockets as he continued talking to the mysterious leader of Academy City. "Kamijou's sure made some tough enemies this time. What are you going to do?"

Aleister grinned at the young man who could not hide his true feelings from him. The man had long white hair somehow still falling down his back and past his shoulders despite him being upside-down in a vat. He began to the boy before him, "The Catholic Church may currently be targeting Kamijou Touma, but I cannot ignore them myself if they are going to take down my own forces." Motoharu grimaced deeply and thought, _Is that why you kept the Black Crows around? Did you want an excuse for whatever you're about to do? You knew they would involve themselves with Kamijou didn't you? You know everything, don't you?_ The boy tssked as the Superintendent of the city continued and made him wonder even more on his true intentions. "I have a new mission for you." A panel opened in the floor in front of Motoharu, and he glared at the metal hand coming out of the ground.

They were in a huge room with no windows, the floors and walls a dark orange with some yellow glowing lines cutting through them. The metal arm that reached up had a pile of white papers in it that were stapled together, and Motoharu snatched them out of its grip. The light from the glowing yellow lines was dim but he could read the file well enough. "Ehh?" He began, a smile spreading across his face again. He looked up towards Aleister and through his glasses the older man could see the boy narrowing his eyes even while he smirked. "What's this? Sending me on vacation?"

Aleister continued grinning calmly and the teenage boy looked back down at the papers, reading them more thoroughly. The white-haired man began while the boy read, "Take that GROUP of yours with you." Motoharu tensed up and his hands clenched harder around the paper. "Awaki should be easy enough, and Unabara," Aleister paused for a second to smirk like he knew very well that the member of group who looked like Unabara Mitsuki was not who he said he was. "He should comply knowing that this Soul is going after his dear Misaka Mikoto. As for Accelerator, well, he may just be more likely to go than you think."

Motoharu grinned with clenched teeth and he began, "You know all that huh?" Aleister continued to grin and the boy in front of him was trying hard not to snarl at the figure. _He also knows where Maika is._ The teen calmed himself down with thoughts about his stepsister and he looked back down at the files in front of him. "Sending me to Italy huh? I know I'm a good spy and all, but the Catholic Church knows who I am. They're going to see me coming."

Aleister Crowley questioned, "Will that be a problem?"

The spiky haired teen smirked and he scoffed loudly. "Course not," he turned away from the leader of the city and started walking away. _This bastard might be insufferable, but if he thinks we can get some info about Soul out of this, then he's probably right. Unless that isn't his plan at all… Stop confusing yourself idiot! Go to Italy, do the mission, learn about Soul, it's the best way this meeting could have wound up. It's like he knew what I wanted to do anyway._ The glowing lights around the room grew dimmer and the corners of Motoharu's mouth dipped down, _Touma, you've got no clue the kind of game you're playing here. Be careful._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Shutaura nooo! Crow 7 suicide bombs Black Crow HQ, and Touma loses his grip on what he can do. Everyone close to him is a target, and we'll see how he handles that. Aleister Crowley sends Tsuchimikado to Italy, will he be able to get all of GROUP to come along? When/where/who will Soul attack next? Find out next time on A Certain Magical Railgun!**

5waydragon chapter 3 . Jun 5

awesome story also are you going to include the creature that's inside of touma

 **Thanks! Seeing as I don't know what you're talking about, probably not :P. As I keep reading the Light Novels though and might run into that sooner or later, maybe it will come into play.**

Cyber dragonarmy chapter 3 . Jun 5

The way this is going gives you really the feeling that this is a story where things will go from bad to worse, too better not good but better and then going right back to dive in to despair. While they later reveal that this was the bonus stage or first wave of many.  
I am definitely like the story and I agree with Mr? that it is really fun to see someone dive into the Kamijou faction since I think it never really was a well developed thing in the anime or the LN.  
Keep up the the good work and see you next chapter also 3 chapters in such a short time has gotta be record.

 **I'm gonna go ahead and say you were totally right, 'cause at the start it seemed like Touma just got a bunch of help and they were about to explain stuff to Misaka... only for pretty much everyone to die. ;( Glad you like the dive into the Kamijou Faction, and 3 chapters in a week is pretty usual when I'm really into a story (so expect another quick update and you won't be disappointed XD). Anyway, thanks for the review!**

Shwae chapter 3 . Jun 6

I held off on reviewing this after the first two chapters as I was cautiously optimistic about the story, but now that I've read the third chapter, I feel I can review this properly.  
First off, it's a great premise, and the only thing it's really missing is the Touma/Misaka interactions.. though as you mentioned in the responses for chapter 3, it seems that's coming. Will be looking forward to that.  
My only other point, and this is a personal gripe so don't take it personal; I feel a lot of newer stories are picking up after the end of the anime. This isn't a problem, but I do miss out on a lot of characters that had yet to show up at that time, some of which are favorites (here's looking at you Othi-chan).  
Regardless, this story's got me hook, line, and sinker. Looking forward to seeing where this goes. Hope to join you on this crazy ride!

 **Glad you've gotten into the story! As for Touma/Misaka interactions, with Touma trying to push Misaka away, maybe set up for more emotional scenes later on... ;), but no spoilers. And yeah I wanted to write this story and did not want to wait until I had finished the Light Novels, so Othinius won't be appearing (at least yet). If I continue this story for a while though, I may reach the point where I hit another arc and would likely have read the rest of the Light Novels by then. Thanks for the review!**

Guest chapter 3 . Jun 6

I really don't like asaasino ...

 **Yeah, he's a dick.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5:**

"Well I called originally to tell you I was taking you out of school, but I'm watching the news right now and I think Academy City might be the safest place you could be. There are riots in Paris and Berlin right now, scientists and Catholics throwing rocks at each other in the streets. The protests are getting out of hand, and I don't know if going back home is even a safe option for you anymore." Misaka Misuzu was on the phone with her daughter. Both of them were in their respective dorm rooms, though Mikoto's mother went to a university far away from her daughter's.

"I'm fine mom," Mikoto complained to her mother while she lay back on her own bed. _Fine except that I got arrested yesterday! Ahh, at least some of the ones who took me into custody recognized me from Endymion the other day so they already suspected I had nothing to do with it._ She held her cellphone to her ear and was trying not to talk too loudly, though it would not matter how quiet she spoke considering her nosy roommate was leaning towards her and listening intently to the conversation. Kuroko was biting on her pillow anxiously when she heard her dear Onee-sama's mom's original worries and all the questions about whether her daughter was safe, and if Academy City was, but the panic really set in when the mention of taking Mikoto out of school happened.

Kuroko nodded furiously along with her roommate in agreement that she did not have to leave. The past twenty-four hours had been difficult for Mikoto, for Academy City, and for the entire world, but she felt she would have it worse than any of them if someone took away her Onee-sama now. Kuroko listened and waited, then let out a giant sigh of relief as she heard the sigh of reluctant acceptance on the other end of Mikoto's phone call. Mikoto let out a sigh of relief as well, as her mother made the kind of noise that sounded like she would be allowing her daughter to stay which Mikoto very much wanted to do. Misuzu told her daughter she could stay, then mentioned again how worried she was. "Mom," Mikoto began, "I get that you're worried about me, but what brought this on? Last time we talked you thought I was completely safe here, you even assured me of it for some weird reason."

Misuzu became silent on the other side of the line. "Well…" she began, humming to herself as if wondering what she should say here. "It's just-" she continued, then humphed as if trying to find the right words for it. Misuzu sighed and started explaining in a quiet whisper, and once she started, Mikoto jumped out of her bed and ran over to her bathroom. She ran inside and shut the door before Kuroko could follow her, making her roommate bang on the door asking to know what was going on.

The girl with her back against the door of her bathroom was wide-eyed with shock, staring at the opposite wall blankly as she heard what her mom had to say. "…but then that boy you were with at the festival saved me from Skill Out. He was hospitalized because of it, but I knew I didn't have to worry anymore. I didn't have to take you out of the city, because I thought you had him protecting you." Mikoto wanted to shout at her mom that she didn't need protection, even while her cheeks were so red they turned purple and her heart rate was three times as fast as normal. "But then," Misuzu continued, and the more she spoke, the less red Mikoto's cheeks turned. First, her expression became more shocked than ever during the conversation, even when her mother told her she had been in Academy City recently, and that she had been kidnapped, and that Touma had saved her. Then, the shocked look on her face faded and was replaced with a sad one, followed by one of anger that rose into full-blown fury.

When her mother finished explaining, Mikoto took a long pause and her furious expression turned a lot more serious. "Thanks mom. I'm really fine though. I'll talk to you later." Mikoto hung up her phone before her mom could call out to her again, and then she stormed out of the bathroom. Kuroko flew backwards as she was right up against the door to the bathroom trying to listen in, but she must have missed out on something because when she opened her mouth to excitedly shout about how Mikoto was allowed to stay, she froze at the sight of Mikoto's look of fury spread from her snarl to her clenched fists.

"I'm going out," Mikoto growled. She took a step towards the door, but Kuroko teleported in front of her with her arms outstretched. "Move out of my way Kuroko," Mikoto growled.

"Not looking like that I won't," Kuroko said. She gulped and continued, "As a member of Judgement, I can't let you go looking like you are about to murder someone." Mikoto's eyes widened a little, then Kuroko leaned forward and with a panicked expression on her own face she exclaimed, "Was it that stupid ape?" Just the mention of him, even if it was in the odd way Kuroko referred to him, it made Mikoto's rage bubble over and she nodded her head 'yes' with gritted teeth. And then, Kuroko stepped out of the way and she smirked, "Go get him Onee-sama." The smaller girl rubbed her hands together and smirked, because the angry look on Mikoto's face was not the usual, 'he frustrates me but it's okay,' kind of looks. She looked seriously mad now, and Kuroko sighed out a nice long breath of relief when her roommate was out the door and gone.

After a few seconds of grinning and leaning back against the wall with her eyes closed, Kuroko had an image flash in her head and her eyes snapped open. Her smile was gone and she stood there staring blankly at the wall across the room from her. _Onee-sama,_ she thought nervously. _I still don't understand what's going on with you, but, but he's…_

* * *

"And you're sure that place is safe? No one knows where it is?"

"Kamijou! Buddy! Trust me okay?" Kamijou took deep breaths on his side of the line but the spiky-haired teen on the other end could hear him and it made him chuckle. Tsuchimikado Motoharu's voice came over the line again, "I know you said you don't want to know where they are, but it is _your_ family Kamijou. Sure you don't want a hint at-"

"No," Touma replied without hesitation. _If they come for me again… I don't want to know where my family is._ "The less people who know the better. The safer they'll be," Touma explained out loud to his friend. His voice lowered to a deeper tone, "Now," his tone was angrier and he continued darkly, "do we have any new information on where Soul is? We need to find out where they are soon." Touma stood on a sidewalk down the street from his own dorm, staying quiet as a few people walked by him and he did not want this conversation to be overheard.

"I know," Motoharu replied. "But so far we've got nothing. Don't worry though, I'm on my way to find out right now." Touma became confused and was going to ask what he meant by that, but his blond friend continued, "Anyway, good luck with whatever you're up to. I'll call you when I've got some new information."

Motoharu was about to close his phone, but Kamijou yelled, "Wait!" The other boy held his phone in his hand about to end the call, but Touma sighed into it and then whispered, "Thanks Tsuchimikado." His friend chuckled and ended the call, then slid his phone down into his pocket and leaned to the left with a small grin on his face. He was wearing sunglasses despite being inside, and he leaned his forehead against the wall next to him, instantly making his whole body vibrate because of the vibrating wall. There was a low hum in the background of giant engines, and the teen looking out his window gazed at the circular jet engine under the wing outside his side of the plane.

He turned his head to the side and glanced across the aisle at a girl with dark red hair tied in two long pigtails. Then he looked behind her at a nicely dressed boy in a sweater vest whose brown hair was combed over today. He kept turning and glanced around his seat at another teenage boy whose white hair was messy and clothes were mismatching the others in their GROUP. The plane's interior was small so there was only one seat on either side of the plane's center aisle, and the rows only went five back, though most of the seats on the plane were empty besides their own. Motoharu glanced up the aisle towards the two seats up front, only one of which was occupied by the Academy City pilot going only by the name Skipper.

As the blond boy looked forward, the pilot looked back and smirked towards them, "We'll be over the drop zone in twenty minutes. Get ready."

Musujime Awaki turned her head sideways and with a bead of sweat on the side of her face questioned in a hesitant tone, "Oi Tsuchimikado, did he just say, 'drop zone?'"

The three in the back other than Motoharu all focused on their blond-haired leader who stood up and cracked his neck to either side. "Oh, did I forget to mention?" He reached down and grabbed a pack out from beneath his seat on the plane. "We don't want the church to see us coming, so we couldn't very well schedule a landing in an airport here in Italy."

Etzali looked out his window and he chuckled in a low tone at the sight of what they were nearing. Awaki heard his laugh and she looked out her own window to see what it was while Accelerator did the same from behind Tsuchimikado's seat. The spiky haired teen turned around and stared forward through the cockpit and out the front window at the mountains they were nearing. He took a step forward, turned right, and opened up a door on the other side of the small bathroom they had in their tiny passenger plane. "We're jumping out in the Alps," Motoharu began while reaching inside the closet.

Back in the main space, Etzali stood up and grabbed his own pack from beneath the seat. Accelerator sighed but did the same while the nervous girl looking out her window slowly looked back at their leader wondering if he was serious. Her jaw dropped as the blond leaned back out of the closet though, because in his hands were a pair of skis and white boots to match. "You have to be kidding me," Awaki muttered, whereas Accelerator's mouth twisted up into a smirk as this boring trip suddenly stepped it up twenty notches.

"Get ready," Motoharu told GROUP. "Even with this, they might still see us coming. Actually, it's most likely they do." Accelerator cracked his neck to both sides, and neither of the others looked very concerned either. The sunglasses-wearing leader chuckled and was glad none of them looked nervous. _Though they should be,_ he thought while looking back forward out the front window. _Dropping right into enemy territory during a war. It may not technically have started yet, but we_ _ **are**_ _at war._

* * *

Back in Academy City, Touma looked at his phone after he said 'thanks' to his friend. There was no response but he did not really expect one. He slid his phone away and leaned against the wall next to him. The sidewalk he was standing on was not very packed, there were few people just walking around at two o'clock on a Wednesday. He had skipped school for another day in a row, though was staying close to his own dorm in case anyone got the idea to go after Index while she was alone.

 _Why couldn't Kanzaki and Stiyl have stayed around a little longer? I know the Anglican Church has it's own concerns right now, but, but Index isn't safe! Not here. Not, with me…_ He thought about how she came back to his dorm the other night and complained about not seeing him, and how she bit him on the head for it. _I don't like being on the defensive. We need to find Soul so we can go after them, not the other way around._

Touma felt all the hair on his neck stand on end. It felt dangerous, but at the same time he did not feel it coming from the direction of his apartment. He turned the other way and saw a menace marching down the sidewalk towards him. Other people saw this girl and moved out of the way, giving her a wide berth because of the sparks flying out of her with every step. Little bolts of lightning hit the floor and slammed up into street lamps around her.

Mikoto saw the boy she was looking for, the one she had been searching for for hours now. She marched right up to him and opened her mouth- "What do you want?" He asked it so flatly, while sticking his hands in his pockets and frowning at her, that Mikoto stopped in her tracks and became confused all of a sudden.

Mikoto shook off the confusion, and she glared more harshly at him than she was when she marched over. _No 'Biribiri?' What is his problem?!_ The nickname that usually annoyed her would have been a relief at the moment and not hearing it only made the middle school girl angrier. "Is there something wrong with you?" She snapped. Before he could answer, she continued furiously, "Did you call my mom?" Touma's opened mouth closed and he looked away hesitantly. "She said you told her you were leaving Academy City! That's not true, is it?" She asked accusingly.

He did not answer for several moments and Mikoto's angry look slowly started to fade. "What's it to you?" He asked, then winced as he saw that furious expression of hers reappear instantly.

"'What's it to me?!' Why are you being-" she stopped herself and ground her teeth angrily. "If you're not," she growled, her fists clenching at her sides and more lightning sparking out of her than before. "And I don't think you are, then you told her that so she would take me out of school, didn't you?" She glared up into his eyes daring him to reply, but when he opened his mouth to say something she just yelled, "That's not your decision to make!"

The taller boy looked down into Mikoto's eyes for a few seconds. They were five feet away from each other, and anyone else on the sidewalk either turned and headed a different direction, or were watching from what they thought was a safe distance. "What do you want from me?" Touma questioned. That was it, Mikoto rose her right hand and a blast of lightning flew at the surprised teen. Touma rose up his own right hand though and her lightning slammed into it, then vanished altogether as he swung his hand to the side.

Mikoto growled and she opened her mouth to yell at him again, but Touma groaned loudly before she could and he turned his side to her, leaning back against the building he was on before again. "Geez, this is getting annoying," he grumbled. She paused with her mouth open and slowly closed it as he continued, "Do one nice thing for someone and they don't stop following you around. Why do I have to deal with this? Such misfortune!" He rubbed the side of his head closer to Mikoto so his left arm was mostly covering what she could see of his face, then stared forward with as straight an expression as he could, and muttered, "What a burden."

 _"One nice thing." "Deal with this." "Burden."_ "Rrrggh," Mikoto's entire body was shaking and she stomped towards him. "Why are you-" he spun to her with an angry look as well, but she ignored it and swung an arm at him anyway.

He reached forward and grabbed her by the wrist before she could pull away. Her eyes opened huge and he gripped her tightly around the wrist while pulling back his other fist. None of her electric powers were working and she could not shock him even as she tried. She froze, and Touma continued to hold his clenched fist there for a second or two, then let go of the girl and pushed her away with the same hand. "It ends the same every time," he grumbled at her. She looked up and saw him turn his back to her. He started walking away without saying anything else, but after a few more steps he stopped, and while still facing away from her, muttered loudly, "Just go home Misaka."

Her eyes opened huge. He had only called her that once before, only once. That time, she felt so great when he said it, her cheeks had reddened and she was giddy for the rest of the day. This time though, she did not know what it was that made the situation different, but it definitely felt that way. Him calling her that name after that confrontation, it was like… _he's acting like we don't even know each other! Like we're not… What's his problem?! Why is he doing this?_ Mikoto's hands clenched so hard and she opened her mouth to shout after him but he just kept walking away without looking back. _Turn around! Get back here! Why aren't you, turning, around?_ Her face scrunched up in anger was twisting more and more and she clenched her eyes shut as she bared her teeth so hard they felt like they would crack. _Turn around! Turn!_

Mikoto snapped her closed eyes open but he was even farther away and still walking at the same pace. Then, he turned down an intersection and never even glanced back her way. The water on the bottom of her eyelids filled up to a point she could not hold it in, but as soon as a single drop came out she clenched her eyes shut hard. The frustration was too much and she bent down with her fists clenched so hard they burst with a blue glow. The people who decided to stay close by took a couple of steps away, then turned and started running as bolts of lightning sparked off of her and caused a blackout on the street. "RAAA!"

Down the block and around the next intersection, Touma leaned back against a wall with his right arm in front of the top half of his face. His face was grim and his teeth ground in anger, _It's for the best._ _It's for the best._ He pushed off the wall and started walking back to his dorm again. He took two steps, froze, and then slammed his right fist into the steel wall at his side as hard as he could. His knuckles bled and he winced, but he still pulled his hand back and punched two more times into the same spot.

* * *

"Index, just listen, please," Touma begged the small girl he was walking with.

"Touma!" She exclaimed. "This isn't like you! I want to stay at our place!"

 _When exactly did it become 'our' place?_ He sighed out loud though as after she had been living there for so long he could not blame her for thinking of it like her own home. "Index," he began with a loud, over the top groan. "I'm having the guys over to do a project, and if Aogami learns I have a girl living with me he's never going to let me hear the end of it." Touma feigned an annoyed expression at his pervy friend, but out the corner of his eye he saw Index frowning at him with her arms crossed over her chest.

The boy sweatdropped and Index began, "Are you sure this isn't because of whatever's going on?" She frowned deeper but also with a look of sadness on her face. "You always do this, and that, and that without telling me. Can't I be some help this time?"

He almost lost his facade because of how bad he felt lying to her, but he knew if he let it show on his face even for a second she would never go back to believing him. "Really," he said and leaned down, rubbing a hand on the top of her head and pushing her nun hat over her eyes which frustrated her and made her lose her sad look. "Just for today and tonight. I'll come get you tomorrow morning." Index pushed her hat up and gave him a look that said 'Really?' He nodded his head and added, "If I wind up in the hospital, you can bite me as many times as you want."

"Hmm," she hummed and examined his face. "Alright," she said with a humph. "But you better not end up there then! Or I'll eat you!" She bared her teeth at him and he chuckled nervously, while hoping in the back of his mind that he really was overreacting and the man he saw near his dorm earlier who gave him a strange look really was just some innocent passerby.

Touma and Index walked to a house both of them recognized and up the steps. Touma knocked on the door, and when it opened, Index ran right inside excitedly, almost knocking the tiny person who opened the door down. "Ah!" The little girl with pink hair down to her shoulders exclaimed. "K-Kamijou-chan! What're you-"

"Sorry Komoe-sensei," Touma told the teacher in front of him who looked like a small child but was actually an adult. "I needed a place for Index to stay for the night. You don't mind do you?"

"Well I, I wasn't expecting," the flustered little teacher spun around in panic and she ran back for her living room. "Oh no oh no!" She started picking up cigarette butts and empty beer cans and throwing them all into a bag to clean up her messy place. "If I had known you were going to stop by like this I would have cleaned up, oh you should not see a teacher's place looking like this." She lifted her head after picking up a beer can then exclaimed, "Ah! That is teacher's dinner!" Index was holding up a plastic tin with delicious-smelling food coming out of it and she started eating fast.

"Thanks Komoe-sensei!" Touma called from the door as the teacher started splitting up her food to Index to let the girl have some.

"W-Wait!" The pink-haired woman called to the door, but Touma had already closed it and the little teacher let out a sigh. She turned back to Index confusedly and asked, "Why did Kamijou-chan need to bring you here tonight?"

Index was too engulfed in her food to stop eating, but through mouthfuls of leftovers she replied, "Touma has a project he needs to do with friends." She continued to eat but did not notice the teacher in front of her go wide-eyed and turn back to the door with a deepening frown of worry. _I didn't give out any project. Kamijou-chan, you haven't been in school all week. What is going on with you?_

Kamijou Touma was walking back to his dorm, still in the mid-afternoon, still on Wednesday. He had only gone back home once since he left for the morning to trick Index into thinking he went to school, and now that he thought about it, he realized his mistake at leaving Komoe and Index together for the night. _Oh man, Index is going to know I'm lying as soon as Komoe mentions I wasn't at school. Maybe I should go back... unless, Komoe might ask Index why she's there first, and if she realizes I'm trying not to tell her something, would she keep it from Index too?_ He ran a hand through his hair and decided to leave this problem for when he picked up Index tomorrow.

The teen walking home turned around an intersection, and he started taking the long, round-about path to get home. He did not have to be as subtle as he was on the way to Komoe-sensei's house with his checks over his shoulder and behind his back this time as Index was not there to ask him what he was doing. He would look over his shoulder before every turn, occasionally dart down a path and step out on a street two down from the one he would normally walk on.

 _It doesn't seem like anyone's following me._ He frowned deeply thinking about that man outside his house. _He was not dressed in a priest's garb or anything, but he looked strange too. Why would a man in a suit be standing there outside the dorms of a school at two-thirty in the afternoon? He should have been at work, and it was too late for just a lunch break. Maybe I'm thinking too hard. No, no, I can't think hard enough in this situation. Not while there are people after me, after Index, after… everyone._ Touma started walking back towards his dorm now, close enough that he did not think he was going to gain a tail before he reached his room.

Thoughts of earlier that day returned to his mind and the boy ground his teeth, still feeling the pain in his right hand from punching that wall. _What if it was all for nothing? What if I was like that, and it doesn't make a difference at all? I would have just made her look like that, for no reason._ Touma's frustrated look grew in anger and he started grumbling under his breath as he reached the steps up to his own apartment. "Stupid Soul, stupid assassins, stupid idiot," he grumbled that last part at himself. _Why didn't I take that guy seriously? Shutaura's dead, and I'm not taking any more chances. I'm not waiting for someone else to die to get serious. They're all in danger because of me, so I need to take care of this. When it's all over, that's when I'll apologize… When it's over? This is a war between the biggest factions in the world. Will it ever, really, be over?_

He slowed down as he reached his own door and he pressed his forehead against it. "What do I do?" He mumbled under his breath. He grabbed his doorknob, then felt a vibration on the hallway directly behind him and spun around while raising his right fist. He had a look of panic, fear, and anger spread across his face, and the girl who was suddenly standing there who was looking at him angrily gained a look of sudden surprise on her face that matched the one he had following getting a good look at the girl. "What are you doing here?" He questioned.

The girl standing behind him wore a long-sleeved white button-down, with the Tokiwadai Middle School uniform vest over it. She had two red bows in her orangish-brown hair that held together her long curly pigtails. The not-even-five-foot-tall girl's surprised look at Touma's expression when he turned disappeared and returned back to the angry one she originally had when she teleported behind him. Her look of fury made Touma wonder if it was the right move lowering his guard once he saw her, and she growled furiously under her breath, "You stupid gorilla."

Touma looked at this girl confusedly, but then something hit him and he snapped his gaze over the short girl's head. She glared up at his face to start yelling at him, only to see him looking over her head and over the railing on the other side of the hall out into the city behind her. "Come inside," he said quickly and pushed the door open, stepping in and then ushering for Kuroko to follow him inside.

Shirai Kuroko looked at him oddly, but she did as he said for some reason. "You followed me?" He questioned her in a small panic as he slammed the door closed behind them. She turned to him and was going to shout, but he raked his right hand up through his hair and looked unnerved by the fact that she appeared at his front door. _How? I was so careful! I thought I made sure no one was following me, but even this middle schooler was able to follow me home. If she could do it, then it should be no problem at all for a trained assassin!_

"Hey!" Kuroko shouted at the teen in front of her. He looked into her eyes and his panicked expression faded a little as he remembered her anger. Kuroko stepped closer to him and she glared angrily into his eyes, "My Onee-sama came back earlier and would not tell me what happened, but I won't forgive you anyway!" Touma sweatdropped as it sounded like this girl had no idea what was going on in the slightest, but she did not need to. Kuroko continued, "Anyone who makes my Onee-sama cry needs to pay." She swung her right hand down next to her right thigh and suddenly there were three sharp needles in her hand.

Her mad face and the intimidating look she tried to have with her needles in hand did not change Touma's expression. He heard the last thing she said and his teeth clenched hard, his eyes shut and he shook his head. _What kind of asshole makes a girl cry?_ He thought to himself while his nails dug into his palms from balling his fists too hard. He expected the girl in front of him to start attacking so he continued to stand there with his eyes closed for a few seconds waiting for it.

Touma opened his eyes as he heard a sigh and he looked in front of him to see Kuroko turning around then stepping farther into his dorm like she owned the place. He stared at her for a moment, then took a step to follow her, only for the girl to spin around and glare at him again which stopped him in his tracks. The anger on her face faded though, and Kuroko took a deep breath as she stared at the 'stupid gorilla' in front of her. "My Onee-sama used to come back late every night," she started quietly, in a voice that had lost most of its anger and confused Touma as he no longer understood why Kuroko was here. He thought she just came to beat him up, but now… "She would not tell me what was wrong, she was trapped in a nightmare, and I couldn't help her."

Touma's eyes slowly widened. _Is she talking about, the Level 6 experiment?_ Kuroko continued as she saw the boy's eyes widen and her suspicions were confirmed, "But that night you came to our room, you looked concerned, worried about her, and even though that annoyed me, even though you annoy me," she turned away and under her breath finished, "after that night, her nightmare was over. I, I never figured out what it was, but you helped her end that nightmare. You saved her from that dark pit." She snapped her gaze back to him and saw him clenching his teeth hard. "She's trying to help you, but you're trying to push her away like she did me, like she probably did to you too!"

The boy thought back to the bridge, when he tried to help, when she shocked him nearly to death before she was willing to get help. He tssked in anger, but seeing the girl's eyes on him he calmed himself down. Touma's expression straightened out as he continued to stare at the younger girl in front of him. "I don't know what you're talking about," he told her. She frowned and he continued, "What Misaka does is none of my-"

"It's fine if you want to do this," Kuroko interrupted, not believing a word he said. "I saw the way you were looking around on your way home like you were being followed, like some demons were chasing you, so don't try this with me." Touma frowned and he wondered where Kuroko was following him form. _She can teleport, so she could have been on the roofs, I wasn't looking straight up. Damn! I need to be more careful._ "But by doing this, you're hurting my Onee-sama more than if you let her help you." Kuroko saw the boy's face soften and she herself frowned deeper at the sight. _I disapprove of your feelings for this monkey. He is my romantic rival!_

Kuroko's angry thoughts at how she was helping out someone who would probably come between her and Misaka later on if things worked out came to a stop and an image reappeared in her mind, the same one that appeared when she first saw her roommate running out angrily to go yell at Touma. Her body still ached and this was the first day she was actually moving around without a wheelchair, a wheelchair she needed because of her fight against Musujime Awaki. She had been shot, lying on the floor, about to die, when she thought her Onee-sama had come to save her. Her eyes had closed peacefully and she was caught in midair by someone, but when they finally stopped moving and she opened her eyes, it was not Misaka Mikoto's face she saw above her. She saw him, smiling down at her as if relieved that she was alright.

"Is that all you needed?" Touma asked the girl in front of him. Her angry look returned and she opened her mouth to shout at the boy again, but sighed at the sight of the straight expression on his and she started walking towards the door.

"You helped her when she needed it the most, so I figured I owed you this," Kuroko said in a cocky, uncaring voice. "But if you hurt her anymore, I won't forgive you." She grabbed the door handle to his dorm, "So," her voice got softer, "go ask her for help. You obviously need it."

She twisted the handle, only to hear Touma behind her, "I can't." She stopped and heard him whisper, "She doesn't understand."

"And if she did?" Kuroko asked, not turning around to look at him. "Do you think she would be afraid? She is the strongest! Level 5! Tokiwadai's ace! The Railgun!" Kuroko threw her arms up in praise at that last shout, then lowered them back down and twisted his door handle again. "The only thing you could possibly do to hurt her is what you're doing right now." Kuroko opened the door and figured that was a good way to end their conversation. She stepped out into the hallway outside his dorm and let out a long breath of exhaustion and frustration as it had taken a lot for her to convince her worse sides that she had to do this, and he was hard to talk to with that stupid face of his.

The small girl took a step past his door, then spotted something on her right side that made her bottom lip start to lower and her eyes begin to widen. **BANG!**

Touma snapped his head to his door and thought, _No._

Kuroko appeared on the roof of a building across the street from Touma's dormitory. She landed down on her knees, panting hard, her heart rate accelerating. She looked down off the roof to the hallway up the steps outside a line of dorm doors. She stared at the twelve figures there in black cloaks, and the man in the very front, a man over eight feet tall with a shaved skull and a black cross tattoo on it. The man in the front was the one with the pistol, and he frowned at the spot that Kuroko was just in.

The men all started charging at the doorway past their large leader, but the door closed before they got there. One of the men reached into his pocket, pulled out two pieces of paper, and slapped them where the hinges were on the side of the door. Kuroko stared at these people in confusion and shock, and then that doubled on her face as the door to Touma's apartment blew right off its hinges. The eight foot tall man marched into Touma's apartment and the other guys in black all charged in as well, followed by flashes of yellow lights coming from inside that looked like gunfire and matched the dozens of shots she heard fire from across the street. _Oh my God,_ Kuroko thought, getting down on her stomach so that only her head was poking up as she looked down.

 _Is he-_ she saw a bunch of glass shattering outwards on the other side of Touma's apartment. The building she teleported onto was a lot higher up so she could see past the dorms to the other side where a boy dove out of a window and dropped a story to the ground. She could not see the floor directly on the other side of that building, so once she could not longer see hims he realized what she was doing and jumped back up on her feet. Jumping up hurt her side where she was shot and her hand snapped up to her old wound. The girl winced, but got ready to teleport back over to try and help out, reaching into her pocket to grab her green Judgement band that she would put on her arm.

She grabbed the band, then froze in absolute terror. Her eyes grew larger and larger and her breath caught in her throat at the sight of the flames billowing out of Touma's front door and out his back windows. His entire dorm erupted in an explosion, but what really made Kuroko freeze in terror was the sound that came from inside that explosion. _**"RoooaaaAARRRR!"**_ It grew steadily louder and sounded like an animal, maybe a lion, or a bear, or something much, much bigger. Out the other side of the teen's dorm, where she saw glass shattering a moment ago, more debris smashed out like the entire frames around those windows were just blasted out with a large chunk of the wall.

 _Something,_ smashed through that wall, and _it_ , leapt outside so that Kuroko got a brief look at it before it dropped out of her sight like Touma did before. When it leapt outside it turned its large, brown, _terrifying_ face in the direction the teen that had leapt out ran in, and she caught a glimpse of the side of that face. Kuroko's fingers lost their grip on her Judgement band, and they left her pockets as she stepped backwards from the edge of the building she was standing on. "What, the fuck," she whispered to herself. Kuroko turned around and teleported a building away in the opposite direction. As she did, she reached into her pocket again and pulled out her phone, _I need help! I can't handle that, that thing! What was that?!_

"Hello?"

"This is Shirai Kuroko out of the 177th Branch Office of Judgement. I have to report an emergency that requires Anti-Skill immediately."

"What's the situation?"

"Someone was just attacked by, by a group of men in black," Kuroko explained.

She did not know how she was going to explain that _thing_ she saw at the end, but before she could try, the operator of Anti-Skill questioned, "Do you know the name of the person who was attacked? Where is this?"

"Um, his name," she thought for a moment but remembered it and replied, "Kamijou Touma. As to where, it's not far from the 47th street mall, and there are-"

"Go home."

Kuroko froze. She had started running to the edge of her building and she was going to teleport back in the direction she thought the boy ran, try and give Anti-Skill better directions. The voice over the phone changed though; it was no longer the woman who answered and asked the original questions but a man whose voice was unnaturally deep. "I'm sorry, I didn't copy-"

"Go home, that's an order." The man repeated.

Kuroko's eyes opened wide and she stared at her phone wondering if she had called the wrong number. This was definitely Anti-Skill though, she could see the Caller ID still on the screen. "We have to help him!" She yelled as she brought the phone back to her mouth. _What's going on?_ "There was an explosion, and…" _What are they saying? Is it because I said his name?_ "And the assailants had guns-"

"Ignore it," the man said to the middle school girl whose entire body tensed up at what he said next. "Return to your home or risk death."

The phone call ended and Kuroko stood there with a gawking expression on her face, staring forward blankly and wondering if she heard that correctly. _Was that really, Anti-Skill? Did someone intercept our call, or, or does the city not want to help him? Are they the ones after him? Is he under arrest, but, if he was, why would he say… "return to your home or risk death."_ Repeating it in her mind made Kuroko take a step backwards, then two. She gazed over some buildings and heard a crash in the distance, several streets away from where she was standing. The girl gulped and she turned, jumping up in the air and teleporting away. _I don't understand any of this!_

Kuroko clenched her eyes shut as she teleported farther away. _I was, wrong. She will still be hurt, but, but she'll be alive._ Kuroko landed on top of a giant skyscraper and tried catching her breath but she was panting too fast. _Don't drag her into this. I'm going to keep her as far away from all this as possible._ She turned her head and looked out over the city, and she wondered if that boy she talked to was still alive. _I'm sorry._

* * *

 **A/N Touma's under attack! Tsuchimikado is parachuting into Italy! Touma's family is hidden, Misaka is pissed at him, and he is all alone being chased by men in black robes and, and whatever that thing Kuroko saw was. Why won't the police help him? Who can he turn to? Find out next time! Hope you all enjoyed the chapter! Thanks for reading!**

Cyber dragonarmy chapter 4 . Jun 8

Wow that are a lot of future plot points that can be made in this chapter.  
First: How are they going to process these deads?  
second:What's going to happen to Misaka now?  
Third: How will Touma get tortured by Misaka for this stunt, when she sees him again.  
Lastly: what is GROUP's involvement going to be.  
great chapter also the way this is going i can somehow see this still becoming a tragedy.

 **Thanks for the review! Tragedy, or uplifting-heartwarming romance, I can see it going either way ;).**

5waydragon chapter 4 . Jun 8

oh god not the feels WHY, also you actually already saw the creature, confused then allow me to enlighten, I'm talking about the dragon that appeared out of touma at the end of battle between him, stiyl, and Aureolus Izzard, now you're probably going "WHAT, but stiyl said that was creation of Aureolus' despair"well here's the thing, in the anime (no they put it in the light novel) while Aureolus going he thought this one thought gone though his head "my ars magna has lost it's power" (yes this is the from subbed version) this simple thought caused his ars magna to shut itself off. and now the question is: how did the dragon come to exist if the ars magna was off? the answer it already existed inside touma right when he got imagine breaker which was during his childhood. your next question is probably who put in touma, i know but i ain't saying ;P but the real big question here is what could require something like imagine breaker to keep it lock up

 **Thanks again for the review (and PMs), and I hope you enjoyed the latest chapter!**

Guest chapter 4 . Jun 8

I hope Touma becomes himself again soon and is not changed permanatky

 **Let's hope there is a 'soon' for the hunted Touma! Thanks for the review!**

Guest chapter 4 . Jun 8

Shutaura's not dead is she? I wouldn't like this story if she is, and getting Mikoto arrested wasn't the smartest move either. And Touma doesn't call her Tatsugami, just Otohime.

 **Welp, sorry, she dead. Didn't make this story M rated but I was on the fence about it for a little wondering if I should 'cause of character deaths. Hope you keep reading!**

Railgun12 chapter 4 . Jun 12

You magnificent bastard of an author! So close...you got them so close to something GOOD happening. Someone was going to support Kamijou with actual resources! Misaka was going to get a better idea of everything! AND THEN YOU YANKED IT ALL AWAY AND CROW 7 AND AUUUUUGH! I'm crying.  
And damn Kamijou. I mean, yeah you have bad luck but just up and refusing to say anything to Mikoto when she has ALREADY been targeted by magical forces SHE DOESN'T UNDERSTAND and is therefore in no way ready to counter is a dumb move. A dumb, dumb move. This isn't the usual "Touma blunders into something more troublesome because bad luck and he cant' help it", he actually does something outright wrong here, I think, and just, poor Mikoto. Plus the whole "now you're arrested cos you were left behind" isn't going to help.

 **XD Right when they thought they were safe, right when everything seemed nice, BAM! Happy to see such a strong reaction, and Touma is acting a little nuts (stupid) right now, but when assassins are blowing up your apartment and everyone you care for, it might be a little hard to think straight :P. Thanks for the review! Thanks again everyone who read, faved, followed, and reviewed this story! 'Till next time!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6:**

Inside Academy City, the sun had set on the horizon and the city of students had gone dark. It was even darker tonight than usual, with streetlights not working in a few districts of the city. In one of those pitch black districts, sitting under a bridge with his back against a dirty wall, was Kamijou Touma.

He was panting heavily and had his hands on his knees as he tried catching some breath. _Am I safe here? What the Hell is that thing?!_ He coughed a couple of times and then looked down at his stomach. The teenage boy lifted the hem of his shirt and winced at the bloody gash on his side. Ever since he dove out his window he had been bleeding, and the light-headedness was finally catching up to him.

The young man with paler-than-usual skin leaned back against the wall. _Did that girl make it away? She could teleport, so, hopefully…_ Touma's eyes were closing without him really noticing. They stopped though and shot back open as he heard it.

"AaaooOOOO!" The howl of some beast echoed into the night sky, and it did not sound very far away.

Touma jumped up fast, immediately bringing his hand to his stomach as the gash filled him with pain. He got the glass out right as he started to run, but without being able to go to the hospital he could not stop the bleeding on his own. _They'd be waiting for me at the hospital. They'd be waiting everywhere! I can't go to Komoe-sensei's either. If they don't know where Index is, I can't lure them to her. I can only hope they weren't following me earlier. And they weren't! They were setting a trap at my house._

He convinced himself as best he could not to be worried about his nun friend, then staggered out from beneath the bridge and started jogging the opposite direction as where he thought the howl came from. _Gotta keep moving. Gotta, get... somewhere! Just don't stay still or, or that creature will-_ he gulped as he ran off, thinking about the four-legged beast with brown fur and sharp teeth that he kept catching glimpses of as it chased him through the city. Whenever it got close, he tried ducking into buildings or alleyways, but it seemed to know it was close too and smashed straight through walls trying to get him.

 _If it wasn't so stupid, it probably would have caught me doubling back twice now. Problem is, that keeps me going in as much of a circle as I'm leading it in. Damn, I need a break,_ he had been slowing down from the second he left his cover, but only at that thought did he realize he was walking and dragging his feet. "Move," he grumbled at himself, lifting his feet up and speeding up again.

 _Where are you even going?_ He thought in aggravation. "AAAOOOOOOO!" A louder howl than what he heard before sounded behind him and his eyes popped open huge. He started running again and in panic thought, _Anywhere but here. Anywhere but here._

* * *

"The series of power outages stemmed from a gas explosion at this residential complex, though luckily, all the residents of the dorm are marked down as safe..."

Shirai Kuroko sat on her bed staring across the room at the television that her roommate was lying in front of. Her upperclassman roommate and best friend had her chin in her palms, staring at the screen with a blank expression. "Well that's good," Mikoto whispered, not sounding really into what was being said.

Kuroko let out a small sigh of relief as she had tensed up when the dorm showed up on the screen. _Onee-sama has never been to his place! Oh I am so relieved!_ Despite her thoughts of relief, her body was still tense and all she could look at were the flames on the television and the plumes of smoke coming off of them.

"...Anti-Skill has issued a statement telling all students and citizens to remain calm as they figure out what caused the accident. Curfew is still in effect, so remain inside even if your electricity..." Mikoto lifted up the remote and turned off the tv. She sat up and stretched her arms over her head with a yawn. When she turned her head though and stood up, the calm look on her face did not fool her roommate.

"Onee-sama?" Kuroko began. Mikoto turned and the younger girl in a pair of pajamas looked away. Kuroko glanced back and whispered, "Is everything, okay?"

"Yeah," she replied. Misaka Mikoto looked towards the window and out into the city that looked a little darker than usual. The corners of her lips dipped down for a second, before curving up as she faced her younger friend. "I'm just gonna, head to bed early," she said, her voice getting softer towards the end as the far smile she put on could not stay for long.

Kuroko's heart clenched up at that expression on Mikoto's face. _Ahh! What do I do?! She's so, sad. But,_ Kuroko glanced herself towards the windows, _at least she's safe._

Mikoto lay down on her bed. She stared at the ceiling for a moment, before turning on her side so that she was facing the wall, away from Kuroko. _Onee-sama,_ Kuroko thought. She reached out a hand, opening her mouth, but froze with it held out and her fingers trembled. Her entire arm was shaking and Kuroko grabbed her right wrist with her other hand, pulling it back into her chest and clenching her eyes and teeth. _**Bang Bang ChChChCh BOOM!**_ Kuroko was shaking as she thought about the gunfire, the explosions, and, _it._ And then something else came to her mind that scared her even more, she saw Mikoto's face the second before she turned away from her only a minute ago.

"Onee-sama!" Kuroko exclaimed. Mikoto sat up fast and turned to her roommate in surprise at how loud Kuroko was, and in confusion considering Kuroko was standing next to her bed with a similarly surprised look on her face.

 _What am I doing?_ "It's just-" Kuroko began. _There are monsters out there._ "I needed to tell you-" _They don't have a problem killing people!_ "Something," Kuroko hesitated with what she was saying and she looked away. She looked out their window into the city that was darker than usual, and she saw lights in the distance cut off all of a sudden. _Anti-Skill won't help him. Nobody will! AghhHH!_ "Are you," Kuroko started again, spinning around and looking back into Mikoto's eyes. "Are you, sure you're alright?"

"I am," Mikoto started, but she stood up from her bed as she said it and looked down into her shorter roommate's eyes. "But Kuroko," Mikoto continued, "you're obviously not."

"Huh?" Kuroko was not expecting this and gained a dumbstruck look to her face.

Mikoto stepped towards her and put her hands on Kuroko's shoulders, giving the younger girl a soft smile that was meant to be encouraging, though Mikoto could not make it look real to her best friend. "I'm sorry I didn't notice earlier," the girl with chestnut-colored hair began, squeezing tightly on Kuroko's shoulders. "Now that I think about it, you've been acting weird all afternoon. What is it? Does it have to do with Judgement?"

"N-No! I mean yes, but no, but-" Kuroko was flustered. She was rambling but nothing she was saying mattered. "It's just…" Kuroko looked into Mikoto's eyes. She leaned forward and Mikoto normally took this as the time to back away or zap her roommate, but this time Kuroko did not seem to have preverted intentions. Kuroko leaned in and just looked into her roommate's eyes, searching them for something, until finally she winced and then let out a loud groan. "Ahhggghgh!"

Kuroko sighed, then lowered her gaze and rubbed her forehead with one hand. "What?" Misaka Mikoto questioned, letting go of her friend and stepping back in confusion.

"Onee-sama," Kuroko began, then looked up with eyes full of guilt as she continued, "you have to promise not to get mad."

"Why would I get mad?" Mikoto questioned, avoiding the question entirely as she was already starting to get angry.

Kuroko gulped, but she decided the second she searched her roommate's eyes. What she was looking for, she couldn't find, and if she ever wanted to get it back, then she had to fix things like she wanted to that morning. _This is my Onee-sama we're talking about anyway. I shouldn't be so worried about her physical safety!_ Kuroko shifted her weight from one foot to the other, then she took in one huge breath and looked Mikoto in the eyes as she began, "That wasn't a gas explosion."

Mikoto's eyes darted to the television, then back to Kuroko in surprise. "Were you there? Or, is this some secret Judgement thing? Is it a cover-up?"

"It was that gorilla's dorm!" Kuroko exclaimed. Everything Mikoto was thinking, her worry for her friend, it all froze and her mind blanked. She blinked a few times wondering if she heard correctly, and telling from Kuroko's expression, she did. Kuroko continued, her voice quieter, "I saw you were upset, and I wanted to give him a piece of my mind, so I followed him to his place…" Kuroko decided not to go into detail with what she talked about with him at his place or her real reason for going. She continued with eyes gazing down at the floor, "But at his place, these men in dark cloaks came out of nowhere, and they started shooting at him."

"Wh-What?" Mikoto whispered. _That idiot! They found out where he lived?! Why was he staying there knowing that they were after him? But, but he should be fine. He can handle me. He can handle Accelerator._ She was trying to keep herself calm, but the panic rose again and she thought, _But can he stop bullets?! That's, that's too much!_ "How long?" She questioned quietly. Kuroko looked at her roommate nervously, but Mikoto snapped up her shadowed-over eyes and yelled, "How long ago?!"

"A few hours, three, four?" Kuroko said, not sure of herself. Mikoto's eyes opened wide. They only grew wider as Kuroko continued, "I wanted to help him, but the dorm exploded."

Mikoto suddenly remembered that the news report was about a gas explosion and her face distorted to an expression of horror. _No,_ she thought, her legs suddenly feeling weak.

"He escaped out the back window!" Kuroko shouted. The older girl looked down in surprise and relief, while Kuroko herself looked shocked. _What was that?_ Kuroko thought, imagining that look on Mikoto's face she had never seen before. The sheer distraught that spread over it in that second before she said Touma made it out, it was scary. "But," Kuroko continued, not wanting to make her relieved roommate look like that again, but also not wanting to give her the wrong impression. "Some- _thing_ followed him out the window."

"What do you mean?" Mikoto snapped, sounding really angry at her friend now as she stepped forward. "What is 'something?'"

"I don't know," Kuroko whispered, the tiniest whisper. Mikoto's angry look faded for a second as she saw that look on her younger friend's face. Kuroko broke eye contact and looked over at a wall, whispering as she did, "I don't know, what it was. I, I, I was just so afraid of it." She gulped and turned back to her roommate, tears on the corners of her eyes. "So I ran," she finished, her voice full of shame.

Mikoto narrowed her eyes at her roommate, her hands shaking in anger. "Did you at least call Anti-Skill?" The older girl questioned. Kuroko nodded her head. "So they're out looking for him?" She asked.

This time, Kuroko did not nod. She stood there looking afraid, and in a quiet voice she whispered, "They told me to go home." Mikoto's angry look vanished in place of a confused one, and her eyes widened even more as her friend continued speaking. "They said, 'Return to your home or risk death.' Onee-sama, I don't know what that boy has gotten himself into, but, I wanted you to stay away from it. I didn't want you running off when that _monster_ is out there in the city."

Mikoto started throwing her school uniform on as fast as she could. Kuroko kept mumbling behind her, but Mikoto's hands were clenched in rage at her sides. She was so angry, she was livid, she was out of her mind right now that's how angry she was. All of her anger was compounding on top of itself, and then she heard a voice in her head. Her hands unclenched, she froze in place with one sock up her leg and the other in hand, almost ready to leave. She stood there and heard a spiky-haired boy's voice in her head, _"_ _Just go home Misaka."_

The older of the two girls froze where she stood for a few seconds as Kuroko looked at her confusedly. _I wouldn't even know where to find him._ Mikoto turned to her bed. _He has those other strong allies with him, and they probably know what's going on. He probably talks to them about these problems instead of keeping them in the dark._ She walked towards her bed and sat down on the side of it. _He probably wants their help, and is going to fight them and win, and- "Just go home Misaka."_ "Why?" The girl whispered, falling to her back and staring up at the ceiling. Mikoto rose an arm up and rested it over her forehead, and she whispered under her breath, "Why are you acting this way?"

He wasn't being the same boy she met. He wasn't being the same boy she knew. He wasn't being the same boy she had started to like…

Kuroko stood next to her bed, biting down on her tongue as hard as she could. _It's so obvious!_ She screamed it in her mind but found herself hesitating to do so out loud. The small girl could not hold her tongue though and she finally teleported forward so she was right next to Mikoto's bed, looking down at the girl's eyes shadowed by her arm. Mikoto could no longer stare at the ceiling and instead she looked into Kuroko's eyes, but her expression did not change at all. "Tell me Onee-sama," Kuroko began, "why do you think he pushed you away?" Mikoto's dark, saddened expression suddenly became confused and she lowered her arm from her face.

"Huh?" Mikoto asked. "How did you, know?"

"Hmph," Kuroko scoffed, as reading her roommate was something so simple to her it did not need explaining in her mind. "Answer the question Onee-sama. Why do you think he's acting this way towards you? Why would he push you away?"

"I don't know!" Mikoto exclaimed, sitting up fast. "He never acts like this! I just don't get it!"

Kuroko stared at the older girl for a few seconds, then sighed and shook her head, "Only you would miss something so obvious." Mikoto opened her mouth to snap at her, so Kuroko finished quickly, " _Obviously,_ he doesn't want you to get hurt, so he's keeping you away from him."

Mikoto shook her head and began, "He wouldn't-" Her eyes snapped open and she froze midway through the sentence. _He wouldn't, right?_ She sat up farther on her bed so she was practically on the edge of it. She spun and looked up at Kuroko, "But he's the one who said-" Kuroko's expression did not change and Mikoto froze with her mouth open. "He pried into what I was-" she stopped again. "He said that- that I should- and he-" the girl was too flustered to finish a single sentence. _Why? This doesn't make any sense! You said it was okay to let people help you! That's why, when you helped me- why are you doing this?! You, did you, do this, to protect- I don't need you to protect- I-_

Mikoto's eyes opened wide as she thought about the apartment on screen. _Where I saw him on the street earlier, it's not far from that dorm. That was really his place, and he knew there might be people coming for it?! Is that why he told me to leave? What is he thinking?! He could have gotten killed! He could be getting killed right now!_ The girl jumped out of her bed and spun towards the window, looking out into the city with eyes as wide as saucers. _Protect me? Why-Why does it, make so much sense?! I hate this! I'm so stupid! How did I not see it? Because there's no way he actually likes me, right? No! Because I'm the Railgun and he should have known I could handle myself! That's why he did it! He thinks I'm weak because he keeps beating me! That's it?! That's why he pushed me away? Because he thinks I can't handle these guys?!_

The girl started shaking in rage again, but Kuroko thought it was definitely a step up from being sad. Mikoto put on her shoes more angrily than anyone had ever put shoes on before. Kuroko thought her feet were going to break straight through the laces at one point. "I'm going out," Mikoto said, walking towards the door.

"W-Wait Onee-sama. Let me come-" Kuroko began.

"Alone," Mikoto finished, her eyes darkening over as she ripped the door open. Kuroko froze with an arm outstretched, then she winced as Mikoto slammed the door shut behind her hard. Kuroko was more scared of her roommate at the moment than she was of mysteries of the night, and she gulped thinking about the poor soul who would be on the receiving end of that anger. Her thoughts of who that someone would be were originally on Kamijou Touma, but the image of the boy in her mind was replaced with that of a burly brown beast that suddenly reminded Kuroko why she kept it to herself for so long in the first place. _Onee-sama, please, I know I think it all the time, but please! Be careful._

* * *

 _"Having everybody come back smiling without having to lose anything, is my dream."_ Mikoto ran down pitch black streets of Academy City. She kept to shadows even in the darkness, avoiding any security robots or windows where people might be able to see her out so long after curfew. _Did you give up on the smiling part? Because of Shutaura? Why didn't you let me help you?!_

She reached an intersection and spun right, then left, then just kept running straight ahead as she had no idea which way was the right way. Something did compel her to go forward though, and that "something" she just hoped was some internal instinct pushing her in the right direction. _Straight towards danger,_ she thought. _Where I should have been the whole time. Damn it! Why didn't he let me help?! They were going to come after me anyway! AGH!_ Mikoto ground her teeth against each other as she sprinted faster. She was nearing the end of the road, but she did not slow down, instead zapping her feet and the wall up ahead of her. The middle schooler sprinted at the wall, then continued sprinting straight up it using her magnetic powers.

The girl jumped on the roof of the building and she did a full three-sixty as she was in the air above it. She picked one of the taller buildings and searched far and wide around the city. She looked right and saw a line of darkness stretching far into the city, then turned forward and saw a small district ahead of her in the darkness, but nothing behind or on her left was. _Is he somewhere in there? Kuroko never mentioned anything about the blackouts. She did mention Anti-Skill though. Is that why there aren't any sirens? Are they the ones chasing him? No, it's most likely the church, but why would the city not be helping him? Weren't the Black Crows going to support us? What was Shutaura going to tell me that day? What was he?!_

Mikoto froze. She froze and stopped thinking about Anti-Skill, and Academy City, about Shutaura, and Kamijou Touma's secrets. All she could think about, was the distant howl she heard coming from the center of the darkened districts of the city. It sounded faint from this distance, but the fact that she could hear it at all unnerved her, because the howl she heard came from that of a wild beast. _Is that what Kuroko is so afraid of? I've seen her take on criminals of the worst kind, so to get her looking like that…_ _Kamijjou._ Mikoto ran to the edge of the building and she leapt off towards the building across the street that was a few stories shorter than this one. She could not take such a shortcut all the time, but she ignored safety and just did a forward tumble as she landed to lessen the jolt on her legs.

She ran, and ran, and sped up every step. The girl descended from the rooftops after a hard fall hurt her left leg, but she did not let the pain slow her down once she started sprinting on the pavement. Lightning sparked around her and she was glad they were already in a blacked-out district as her powers would be running amuck of anything electrical near her at the moment. Misaka Mikoto ran down the road and turned right, then sprinted down that road and turned left. She ran twenty steps forward, then spotted movement at an intersection a block down from her. Mikoto froze, and then the figure who just ran on the road and darted his head right to look down it, turned his head the other way to check if that was a better option.

Touma froze and his jaw dropped. Misaka stood not fifty yards ahead of him, gawking right back at him at a sudden loss of words. "What-" he started, unable to form a sentence for a second. When he could, he started towards her and called out in a loud voice, "What are you doing running around at night? It isn't safe!"

Mikoto dropped her bottom lip lower, then growled and shouted, "Your house blew up!"

A bead of sweat rolled down the side of Touma's face as he came to a stop twenty feet in front of Mikoto. Under his breath he muttered, "Pigtails should have kept her mouth shut."

 **"Grrrrr…"** Touma's entire body tensed and Mikoto stopped with her mouth open as she was about to start scolding him. The look on his face at the sound of that growl was like the one she saw on Kuroko's back in their dorm room.

 _It's so close!_ Touma thought in panic, then sprinted forward faster than ever. As he ran to Mikoto, he grabbed her by the arm and did not slow down, yanking the girl away with him. "Run Misaka!" He yelled. The fact that he used her name, that he used it in a way that sounded so much like the way she heard it the first time, not earlier that day, made Misaka want to smile, only she couldn't. She had not turned around fully yet as he yanked her away towards a nearby alley, so she was still looking back at the last intersection when she saw the foot step around the corner. Her lips, frozen open, shook at the sight of the furry brown foot that had four sharp claws on it. Each claw pushed down on the pavement and Mikoto tried comparing the size of just one paw to something, and thought maybe a car tire was the closest thing to it. Another foot stepped forward, but Mikoto's eyes rose up to the head sneaking around the corner, moving forward slowly and twitching, its nose lifted up just a little bit as it bobbed its head.

Touma pulled the two of them into an alley and he kept running. Mikoto frowned a few seconds after the beast was out of her sight. "Stop," she said. He turned to her like she was crazy, but she pushed his hand off her arm and said, "I saw it turn our way before we got into the alley. It's using scent to follow you."

"How are you calm right now?!" He shouted at her. Mikoto was not expecting that reaction, but she also was not expecting this scared look on his face. His face was coated in sweat and dirt, his clothes were just as dirty, and his hands were red. _Red?_ "You saw that thing right? You need to go home! Now!" He yelled at her. _If it's using my scent, then I don't want it to catch a whiff of yours!_

"You just-" she began, then stopped with her mouth open as she did not know how to end that sentence. _You just want me to go to protect me? How weird would that sound? What if that's not it at all?! That would be so-_ Mikoto saw his face fill with fear and she spun around, realizing she was thinking about the complete wrong thing at the moment. Standing behind her, at the entrance to the alleyway twenty feet away, the beast stood. She saw its face right when it turned towards her which is why she was so frozen and allowed herself to get pulled so far down the alley, but a closer second look brought her back to that expression of shock. She stepped back, and Touma did too, as they stared at a real life monster.

Its face was covered in dark orange, brownish fur. It had two red eyes that seemed to emit a small glow, as even in the near pitch-blackness of this alleyway, in a district that was having a blackout, at midnight on a night with a lot of cloud coverage, they could clearly see the color of this creature's eyes. Its mouth was open, revealing sharp canines going all the way around the top and bottom jaws. Steam came out of the beast's mouth every time it breathed, breaths that smelled and felt hot on the students' skin even though they were twenty feet away, and increasing that distance with every step back. Mikoto took one last step, then as her foot was coming down she slammed it down hard with a loud stomp.

Touma looked away from the monster that even on all fours, was ten feet tall at the top of its head. He wanted to step back again, but Misaka stood in front of him, closer to the monster than he was himself. "I'm going to fight," she said. Touma looked at her like she was crazy, only for sparks to fly from her body and lightning bolts to whip around her all the way to the walls on both sides. The alleyway was narrow, just wide enough for Misaka to stand there with her arms out to the sides and not touch either wall, or for two people to run side by side. It was barely a wide enough space for the monster in front of her, and her mouth curled up into a grin that did not match the sweatdrops coming down both sides of her face. _We have the advantage here in close quarters. It won't be good for us either, but it will be much worse for a burly beast like this._

It charged. "Run!" Touma yelled. Misaka had no intention of doing so though, and she pointed her hands forward and blasted the monster with a huge amount of electricity.

The girl smirked as her blast was right on target. "Get down!" Touma yelled. He tackled her to the side, and as they hit the ground, Mikoto opened her mouth to yell at the idiot for doing that out of nowhere. When she opened her mouth though, her eyes shot open seeing a claw swipe through the smoke that surrounded the front of the monster when her lightning hit it.

Touma stood back up fast and pulled Mikoto back with him as he did. The monster stepped through the smoke and the girl whispered, "I don't get it. How did it-" she stopped talking, and she and Touma stared in shock at the beast's fur, sparking electricity. Its entire body looked like it was charged, and it sprinted down the alley twice as fast as a second ago. Touma pushed Mikoto backwards, then leapt to his left himself and grabbed onto a metal bar on the wall, pulling himself up fast then jumping over the second claw swung at him. He reached down, but the monster leapt backwards before his right hand could touch the top of its head. Touma's eyes widened at what that could mean, and then he yelled out in pain as he hit the wall on the other side of the alley, and a piece of metal sticking out of the wall hit him right in a sore spot on his side.

The boy dropped down to the ground and groaned in pain and annoyance. He turned his head and looked over at the beast that when they made eye contact, started grinning at him with its mouth full of sharp teeth. Touma frowned in anger at the sight. He pushed his hands down on the ground at his sides and the beast's grin went away, going back to the animalistic look it had a second ago. The red eyes seemed to glow a little brighter, and the beast snarled, **"RRRRRrrr,"** it started inching forward, baring its teeth every few seconds at the boy if he wasn't backing away from it.

 _Does it know I'm hurt? I guess if it's been following my scent, it must be finding the blood I leave behind all over the place._ He looked down at his side that he was grabbing tightly with one hand, getting more blood on it again. The blood on his hands had finally dried, as the wound had sealed quite a bit, but hitting that wall hard broke most of the scabs his body had produced. He staggered backwards so that he was next to Mikoto who could not tell if she wanted to yell at him for pushing her away, or ask if he was alright from hitting that wall as he looked like he was in a lot of pain. Before she asked though, she thought about him on a bridge. She had zapped him so hard she thought his heart had stopped. She thought about him fighting Accelerator, getting back up on his feet when she thought he might have been dead. He was covered head to toe in blood, but he marched forward and knocked Accelerator out to save her. _Now that I think about it, Kuroko's right. It really should have been obvious. So then, it's my fault he's been out here fighting all alone. Where are those people he's friends with? It doesn't matter right now. All that matters, is that I'm here, and I can do something._

"I guess, this thing, is kind of like you," Touma said. Mikoto turned and was going to snap at him, but he was panting hard, sweating badly, pale in the face, and had a small grin on his face for the joke he just said. "Alright," he continued, his smile lowering into a straight lip and his fists clenching hard at his sides. The beast in front of him stopped stepping forward as it saw the look in Touma's eyes. "We doing this?" He asked. "Are you really ready?"

Mikoto's eyes went wide, then she snapped her gaze solely back to the monster and she nodded her head. "Oh I'm ready. We've got it right where we want it." She rose up her arms, and the steel tubes on the walls on her sides started to shake as static rippled through them.

"I just need to touch it with my right hand," Touma said. The girl behind him nodded at his back. _What kind of power is that?! What will punching something like this do?! I don't know, but, but even though he won't tell me._ Her face hardened and she stomped forward hard while swinging her arms forward and breaking the pipes off the wall. _I'll trust him!_ The pipes broke and steam shout out of them into the alley.

 _Perfect,_ Touma thought. He ran forwards as the monster could only be in front of him, and he made a wide swipe with his right hand. Right when his hand was about to hit the beast in the steam, the shadow shot up in the air. Touma snapped his head up, and his eyes opened wide as he saw movement up the wall on his left side. "It's going up!" He yelled.

Misaka snapped her head up, then jumped up to the left wall herself and started sprinting out of the smokescreen she made. She ran out of it and saw the beast climbing above her. She pointed a hand up to try and shoot it down, but it did not look like the monster was trying to get to the roof at all. It turned and made eye contact with her, then spun around on all fours and dugs its claws deeper into the wall. Every step it made up the wall left four small circular holes in stone and steel, and Mikoto was terrified imagining what would happen if those claws dug into her. Or its teeth. It charged. _My lightning does nothing!_ She swung a hand in front of where the monster was running, breaking apart the building before it could dig its claws in.

It was quick thinking, and the monster missed one of its steps. It tried grabbing on with another claw, but it missed its hold and dropped out of the air back into the smoke below. It seemed like steam had stopped coming out of the pipes she broke however, as the smokescreen was thinning out in the alley. Mikoto dropped out of the air into the deeper darkness below mixed with some steam that almost made it seem lighter outside. She walked towards where the loud thud of the beast hitting down came from, but she did not see any massive form in front of her. She got so close that she did not know how she could be missing it, even in this darkness.

The girl jogged forward, then she saw them. She froze and stared ahead with wide eyes at the sight of the teenager, leaning down with his left hand clenched around the man's cloak, right hand pulled back into a fist. Touma swung forward again, and again, and again, and again. The monster that he slammed his fist into turned back into a man, a man over eight feet tall who had on a black cloak, and whose face was getting bloodier and bloodier by the second. "Was it you?! Did you kidnap Crow 7's family? Did you plant the bomb?! Who are you?! Answer me!" Every shout came with another punch to the face. Mikoto stood behind him as the cloud thinned, and she wanted to say something, but the sound of fist on face and Touma's screams drowned out the whispers she kept making.

"Baka, idiot- hey, hey listen," she could not raise her voice as she saw him pull his fist so far back and scream. He did not shout a question, or a demand, he just screamed in frustration before slamming a fist forward so hard that teeth flew out of the man's mouth, and he finally made a grunt of pain which seemed to satisfy Touma enough to let him go. He released his left hand from around the man's collar, and let him collapse down to the ground after that final punch.

Touma stood there looking down at the man, panting heavily but in raspy, short breaths. "Thanks," he began. He turned his head sideways and looked back at the girl he noticed was standing behind him. Mikoto frowned and was about to answer, but instead she rose up her right hand and Touma's eyes opened wide as she shot a huge bolt of lightning at him. It missed his face by inches, flying straight over his right shoulder instead. He heard a loud 'ugh' behind him and spun, to see the eight foot tall man back up on his feet, a deranged look on his face, a knife held up in the air, and his entire body burnt black and smoking. He opened his mouth and more smoke came out, then he fell straight backwards, his eyes rolled far into his head.

"Let's get out of here," Misaka Mikoto suggested. Touma nodded as he turned back to her, and they both ran down the alleyway the opposite direction as where they came from since they were nervous the huge man lying in their way would get up again.

They ran down a main road, then down a different alleyway far into the darkness where they finally slowed down to catch their breaths. Touma put his back against the wall and leaned the back of his head against it. Mikoto stood a few yards further down the alley as him, hands down on her knees as she took in deep breaths through her nose and let them out her mouth. After about a minute, she had calmed herself down, and she turned towards Touma who was looking straight up at the sky.

The younger girl marched towards Touma and his eyes lowered to see her staring at him frustratedly, hands on her hips, grumbling under her breath. He opened his mouth, but stopped as he had no idea what he was supposed to say. The reason she was grumbling under her breath instead of speaking was the same as his though. "You," she began. "What, were, you thinking?!" She stomped towards him and he pulled back in as he did not want to get hit by the fist she rose.

When Touma pulled away, the boy winced and he hunched over a little. He tried making it look like nothing and just lifted his hand to the right side of his stomach. "I, told you, to just go home," he replied weakly, and not with much conviction in his words. He looked down at the floor instead of the girl next to him. "This, is too dangerous," he whispered, making Misaka's eyes widen at the confirmation of what Kuroko told her and she already half believed.

"I can handle myself," Misaka whispered harshly back at him. "You don't need to worry about me."

"But you don't, even know," he started, then shook his head and chuckled a little under his breath. "You don't understand, what's happening."

The girl frowned deeply. She took another step towards him and leaned down a little, "That's because…" she faded off. His bowed head did not look up when she started speaking from right in front of him, and she looked down where his eyes were pointing. Mikoto looked at his right hand, and she watched as some liquid dripped between his fingers. A cloud in the sky moved away from the moon for a second, and with the sudden extra light in the alley, Mikoto realized that his shirt was not dark-colored at all. Dirt from places he had been hiding caked his previously white shirt, but there was also a large dart spot on his right side, and it was all red.

Touma lifted his gaze a little and saw Mikoto's wide-eyed shock. "Is it, that bad?" He muttered. The boy lifted his hand and watched as blood rolled down his wrist to his arm.

Mikoto grabbed him by the upper left arm and pulled him off the wall. He looked at her in surprise, but she had a worried look on her face and said, "We need to get you to the hospital."

He pulled his arm away from her right as she was about to start running, and she stumbled a few steps away. "No," he told her. She spun angrily but before she could yell at him, he whispered, "That's where I was attacked last time, it isn't safe." He shook his head, and wondered if there was anywhere in Academy City that was safe for him now. "Stiyl and Kanzaki aren't in the city right now. And I can't go back to your apartment either. I don't want to drag that roommate of yours any farther into this."

On that, Mikoto could agree. She furrowed her brow and wondered what to do, but another look at Touma's bloody stomach and she knew she had to act fast. _Damn, it's my only choice._ "Alright, come on." He looked at her in confusion, but she grabbed his arm and started walking fast down the alleyway. "I have a place."

"Anyone who's there won't be safe," he muttered.

"It's a hotel," Mikoto continued, while she ran the two of them down a block. He looked at her with utter confusion on his face. Her voice got quieter and she continued, "I have a room permanently rented there that no one knows about." Her face turned a little red but she shook it and focused on Touma's injury. _I need to get him there fast. I still have a first-aid kit in the room._ Thinking about why she needed one in there made the girl frown deeply. She thought about how after destroying labs for the Level 6 project she would always return there to rest, too exhausted to make it home sometimes, and occasionally needing to wrap her injuries without anyone seeing her do so.

"Even if you think, they don't know, about it," he began. His feet were dragging and Mikoto was getting annoyed at how slow he was being. "They'll know. They'll find us. They'll find me, and when they do, I don't want you to be there." She did not turn around, her mouth just twisted into an even deeper frown. "I don't want you to have, any part in this."

"Hmph, you can't make that decision for me," she said. His eyes opened wider as she turned her head sideways and looked back into his eyes, "I'm not going to let you die."

Touma wanted to argue with her. He wanted to tell her to leave him alone again, but she was interfering no matter what he said. _That look on her face earlier. I really thought she would stay away. Is it because Kuroko told her I was in danger? Damn, this stinks._

The two of them ran in mostly silence across many blocks before slowing down in front of a dark building. "Nice, this place is blacked-out too," Mikoto said.

"Why is that a good thing?" Touma questioned.

"Because I won't have to explain why you're coming up to…" she faded off, then shook her head and exclaimed, "No one will be able to see the blood on your clothes!"

"Oh," he mumbled, as that made enough sense to him.

The two of them headed inside the hotel, and it was pitch black inside. Mikoto wondered where the person behind the counter was, but figured this was actually the best thing that could have happened. "Come on," she whispered, and led the two of them to the stairs quickly. She ran into the stairwell and brought Touma upstairs quickly, to the seventh floor that she had a room on. She led them down the hall then pulled out a key-card that she swiped in front of the pad on the door. After a second of nothing happening, she smacked her forehead and put the card away. The girl reached forward and put her hand against the pad, and sparks flew from her fingers.

 **Click.**

The door unlocked and Mikoto pushed it open. The room was dark inside, only for Mikoto and Touma to open their eyes wide in surprise as the lights suddenly turned on. They turned around and saw the lights in the hallway turning on as well, like someone had just flipped a breaker or something and got the building back running again. The kids heard noise down the hall like people who were worried about leaving their rooms and getting locked out were finally opening their doors to check out what was going on.

"Inside," Mikoto whispered, grabbing him and pulling him inside quickly. The door shut behind them, and Mikoto leaned her back against it in relief that they managed to make it here without anyone seeing them. "We did-" she froze, as now that there were lights on, she got her first, really good look at the boy in front of her. The gash on his stomach cut straight through his shirt, but there were other parts on his shirt that were ripped, and a shallower cut or two on his arms.

The younger girl sighed as she saw him smile and pretend like the injuries were not bothering him. "Go sit on the bed," she told him, while walking to the bathroom herself. Mikoto washed her hands while Touma walked over and sat down on the bed. He looked around the huge hotel room and a bead of sweat rolled down his face that a middle school girl could afford having a place like this. _It's nicer than my dorm… or, well I guess everything's nicer than my dorm now._

The boy turned and looked out the window into the dark night. _My home for as long as I have memories, destroyed. I hope Index isn't too upset._ He smiled softly, _At least I kept my word. I didn't end up in the hospital._

"Alright," a girl's voice said on his side. He turned and looked at Misaka Mikoto to see she had taken off the tan vest over her white shirt and rolled up her white sleeves to her shoulders. She had washed her hands and now held some gauze, wrapping bandages, and a bottle of disinfectant. "Hold still." She walked up to him and leaned down, and instead of protesting, he just turned away with slightly red cheeks. He was the one who told her they couldn't go to the hospital, so he did not want to complain when she was doing something like this for him.

The younger girl gasped when she lifted her shirt, but Touma just winced and said, "It's fine."

She shook her head, _No it's not._ Mikoto stared at the deep wound and lifted up the disinfectant bottle. "This is going to hurt," she murmured, and he clenched his teeth hard as he was already expecting that. "On three. One-" she dumped some of the bottle on the injury. Touma's eyes snapped open and he bit his teeth down harder to prevent himself from screaming. Mikoto was surprised he did not even let out a yelp, and she got to patting down the wound with gauze.

The two of them sat there in silence. Mikoto kept wrapping up his injuries, and Touma kept his mouth shut. She wrapped his stomach, and had to ask him to take his shirt off as it was getting in the way too much. Mikoto could not prevent her cheeks from turning bright red, but she focused on the deep cut she saw on his left shoulder that she did not notice before. The girl with short light-brown hair got off her knees that she had stayed on for wrapping around his stomach, and she leaned up more to wrap bandages around his shoulder too. It was difficult to wrap something around the shoulder to get the entire wound under it, but she did not stop until she was sure the bandage was tight and not going to come off easily.

She started work on a small cut she saw on his left hand, sitting next to him on the bed to do it. "I'm sorry," Touma whispered. The girl's hands froze where they were on his arm, and she lifted her gaze to meet his eyes.

Touma wanted to thank her. He wanted to say 'thank you,' but before he could, 'I'm sorry,' just came out. They made eye contact and he whispered, "I shouldn't have, pushed you away, like that." At the end he turned his gaze away as he thought about earlier that day and the hurt way she looked at him. 'I'm sorry' did not seem like enough to make up for it.

"Why?" She whispered. He looked back at her and she was wrapping his bandages. "Why didn't you ask for my help?" Her eyes were downcast, as she was thinking about something else. "Why don't you take your own advice? Those things you told me, try applying them to yourself, and ask for help when you need it." She lifted her gaze back to his eyes as she finished wrapping the final wound. They sat there, her hands still touching his arm, their faces only a foot away.

The closeness got to the two of them at the same time and the serious tone they both had on their faces was replaced by blushes. The fact that Touma did not have a shirt on, and that this conversation was taking place on a bed, did not help with the situation at all. "Um, um, we should, get some rest," Mikoto said frantically, looking away as her face was nearing a purple color.

"Y-Yeah," Touma agreed, standing up off the bed. Mikoto turned and watched him walk around the bed and grab a pillow and one of the blankets. He gathered them up in his arms and then started walking the other way towards where Mikoto went when she first entered the room.

The younger girl stared at him in deadpanned confusion for a moment, then said flatly, "Where are you going?"

He turned back for a second, then motioned with his head back, "To the bathroom."

"Why?" She questioned. "Why are you taking a pillow and a blanket to the bathroom?"

"To sleep in the bathtub," he replied as if it were the natural response.

She jumped up and snapped at him, "Why would you do that?!"

"Um," he muttered. "It's where I usually sleep in my own house, because…" Touma faded off, remembering that this was definitely not a normal thing to do. _And she has no idea that Index lives with me, and I'd rather not tell her that a nun sleeps in my bed every night._ The boy chuckled and he turned back around, "You have the bed. I'll be fine."

Mikoto gawked after him for a few moments, then opened her mouth to argue more. She stopped herself though as she suddenly realized something. _Where would he have slept, if I have the bed?_ She looked around the room, and though it was big, there was not much to it other than the king-sized bed. Mikoto stared at the bed, and thought, _We could have shared…_ Her face turned so red it looked like steam would come out of her ears. She started murmuring under her breath in panic and jumped forward, landing on the bed and burying her face into a pillow. _What am I thinking? I'm sharing a hotel room with him already,_ her heart was already pounding at just that much, but the idea of sharing a bed, she couldn't even imagine. _Wait,_ she thought and her eyes opened as a look of confusion spread across her face, _he normally sleeps in the bath? What the-_

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the latest chapter and the battle against a scary monster! Kuroko cracks and tells Mikoto what happened, and she runs out to help Touma. The two of them go to Mikoto's hotel room, now in it together as they run from the church. What will happen next? Leave a review telling me what you think and predictions for later chapters!**

5waydragon chapter 5 . Jun 15

well i didn't like it i loved it you kept making jaw drop especially the part where koroko witnesses the attack on touma also i would like a status update on how far along are you in the light novels

 **Haha Thanks! Kuroko def got freaked out, but luckily (for Touma) she decided to tell Mikoto about it. As for the light novels, I kind of spoiled them for myself with this story, as I read up on many of the characters and interactions they would have in soon chapters, as well as enemies from the Catholic church to use... so I stopped reading as I know how it's all gonna end now ;(. But that also means I can't be spoiled anymore, so there's a plus!**

Guest chapter 5 . Jun 15

Tsuchimikado calls him 'Kami-yan' not 'Kamijou', another thing, I can't believe you killed off Shutaura just like that! Unacceptable. By the way, the guy who told Kuroko to go home or risk death doesn't sound like something Anti-Skill would say.

 **Thanks for the review. Forgot about the Kami-yan thing, maybe Tsuchimikado's just being more serious in that last call, but I'll remember it in later chapters.**

Guest chapter 5 . Jun 15

Are you Othinus?

 **Yes. (Disclaimer: I do not own To Aru Majutsu no Index nor any of its related manga/anime. I am also not one of the characters.)**

Handsomistic1 chapter 5 . Jun 18

First time reader and reviewer here. Man this ish is action-packed! I couldn't stop reading after ever chapter. It really seems like this could be canon IMO. Looking forward to next chapter.

 **Glad you liked it so much! Hope you enjoyed the latest chapter! And thanks for the review!**

 **-Thanks again to everyone who read, followed, faved, and reviewed this story. Well, 'till next time!**


End file.
